I’m surprised this hasn’t made GD yet. A federal judge has just ruled that the Indiana House of Representatives can’t open sessions with overtly Christian prayers. The case was brought by the Indiana ACLU on behalf of four plaintiffs, including one Quaker lobbyist, who were offended by the overtly Christian content of session opening prayers.
So, PC run amuck and enforced by the courts, or just and fair?
I’m kind of “meh” about the whole thing, myself, despite being an agnostic and a great advocate of secular government. If the laws were written to include invocations to God, then I’d be worried, but opening prayers (not ALL of which were overtly Christian) in a body comprised largely of Christians doesn’t particularly bother me.
My husband is a state employee. Though he personally holds religious beliefs, he refuses to participate in the prayer sessions which sometimes open conferences or meetings. He and I feel that it is a gross violation of the seperation of church and state.
Prayer has no place in government doings, no matter how carefully “vague” references to the particular deity are. Nor does it change matters if it’s “non-denominational” because it’s still adressing a god, which simply has no place in governmental actions.
The Indianapolis Star story gives more detail. http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051201/NEWS01/512010428/1006
The incident that spurred the lawsuit was an opening prayer by Rev. Clarence Brown of Second Baptist Church in Bedford. Brown led the House in singing Just A Little Talk With Jesus, encouring the reps to sing along and clap their hands. A few reps walked out. A Quaker lobbyist in the gallery attempted to leave, but says security wouldn’t let him out.
The message was clear; If you aren’t a Protestant Christian, you still have to stand up and sing about Jesus. This is supposed to be a state where one is free to be a Catholic, Jew, or Muslim without being coerced into somebody else’s religious rituals.
Sigh…if they must obsess with the prayer thing (which has nothing to do with a large portion of America’s “fabric”, I might add), they should not make it a christian prayer. They should make it a generic “holy moly” statement of belief and get back to fucking work.
Now obviously this could be materially different from the Marsh v. Chambers case.
Just taking a quick look at the Supreme Court’s current composition I’d say at least four justices would overturn this decision.
John Paul Stevens was part of the court that laid down the Marsh decision and I don’t see him going back on his previous stance.
The same with Justice O’Connor, she was in agreement with the Marsh decision and I don’t see her reversing her stance on that.
John Roberts and Scalia both are probably given to overturn the lower court’s ruling and allow legislative prayer sessoins.
After that there’s 3 more justices appointed by Republican presidents and only one of them would have to side with the other 4 to get the 5-4 needed to overturn the lower court’s ruling on this matter.
Holy Smokes. That’s a little more serious coersion than a passing mention of our Lord Jesus in a prayer. The balance beween a secular government and the freedom of worship is tricky sometimes. As a believer I don’t want anyone to be verbally pummeled into any belief and yet I want to protect the rights of those that do believe so that they are not persecuted for practicing openly if they choose to. Of course believers can pray before they get there and ask for divine guidence if they want to.
How about a few moments of silence for either prayer or meditation about the seriousness and responsibility of making laws that affect their fellow citizens.
Singing a song about Jesus??? I revere Christ but I’d walk out too.
No one has ever told anyone they couldn’t practice their religion openly, off the taxpayer’s time, of course. I think they just have to realize that if they want to be preachers, there are jobs within the church they can apply for. This particular job is about governing.
Have you read the specifics of this case as posted by AskNott? This goes a little beyond just an opening prayer. There was an attempt to coerce people to sing along with a hymn and to physically prevent people from leaving.
I did read the article. But I have to wonder why the Federal judge didn’t prohibit raucous singing if that’s what he had a problem with, he explicitly prohibited prayer in general. Which seems to me to be a clear violation of the precedent established by Marsh v. Chambers. And while some members of the SCOTUS may be up for changing the Marsh decision, typically the court doesn’t like it very much when clearly established precedent is flaunted by a lower court.
We could have a case similar to the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, in that it will modify the underlying issue (like Casey did with the abortion issue) perhaps by saying the prayer needs to be nondenominational and there can’t be a coercive element to the prayer?
The Nebraska chaplain that was paid for his services opening the legislatured had testified that his goal was to create a non-denominational prayer, and that may have been a reason the court was okay with the practice.
One could argue that prayer in any form is coercive when it’s coming from someone in a position of power. I don’t care how long it’s been going on. It has no place in the people’s government. I fail to see why this is so hard for the preachies to comprehend.
Well, it’s also apparently hard for the SCOTUS to comprehend as well ;). And in the Marsh case it was explained that it’s more than just an issue of how long it has been going on:
I also think another big element is the court has always been very reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of the other branches. Now, if a given executive action or legislative act is unconstitutional the SCOTUS is more than willing and ready to strike it down. But when it’s internal matters in which the legislature has typically governed itself, the court is highly reluctant to interfere with that.
The court doesn’t want to get involved in issues like “who can say or do what” in a legislature or “is the President allowed to fire this staff member” and etc.
