Well he might as well have.
from the Indianapolis Star:
A federal court judge Wednesday barred prayers that mention Jesus Christ or endorse any religion at the opening of each daily session of the Indiana House of Representatives.
Judge David Hamilton found that the House practice breached the clause of the U.S. Constitution prohibiting government establishment of religion. While not banning prayers in the House, Hamilton ordered that any person chosen to give the invocation be instructed it must not advance any one faith or be used in a bid to convert listeners.
Hamilton, who based his decision on a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision setting boundaries on legislative prayer, said all are free to pray as they wish in their places of worship.
“The individuals do not have a First Amendment right, however, to use an official platform like the Speaker’s podium . . . to express their own religious faiths,” Hamilton said.
You can continue to pray, you just can’t pray to your God. I could understand preaching from the Speaker’s podium, but a simple prayer. This is unbelievable. This is simple judicial activism.
I am certainly no lawyer, but I do not see in any way how this violates the constitution. They are not trying to pass religious law. They allow diversity of other religions. This has to be a case now of the government dictating how a religious person can pray to his God. Also, who or what exactly are they suppose to pray to, the state, a lamp on the desk, who, what?
I certainly hope Speaker Bosma appeals this. First they take prayers out of the class room. Thank God for Private Schools. Now they have taken Christ out of Christian prayers in the State House.
Needless to say I am very disappointed in this ruling and I hope that it is over-turned on appeal.
Information on Judge David F. Hamilton
Highlights of federal Judge David Hamilton’s ruling regarding prayer in the Indiana House of Representatives:
- “When the founders of this nation set the boundaries on the power of government, the first words they wrote in the Bill of Rights were “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . . . The founders recognized that we are a people of many strong and vigorous faiths. They acted to protect the liberty to practice those faiths.”
- While the boundary between permissible and impermissible legislative prayer may not be a precisely drawn one, the current legislative prayer practices of the Indiana House “are well outside the boundaries” established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1983 and subsequently upheld by lower courts.
- “The court recognizes that the relief granted in this case might make it difficult or even impossible for some clergy or believers to offer official (House) prayers.” But the alternative to banning sectarian prayers “would be a complete prohibition on legislative prayer.”
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