Prayer Ruling Reversed for IN Law Makers

In a 2 to 1 ruling, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh District has overturned a lower courts ruling banning prayer at the start of each day of business in the Indiana General Assembly. Plaintiffs argued that as tax payers, they should not have to subsidize the cost of inviting religious officials to Indianapolis, and paying for their prayers to be streamed live on the internet at a cost of more than $1000 a minute. They further argued that during the 2005 session of the Assembly, an overwhelming majority of the prayers were Christian. The court found that 41 of the 53 days of the session were opened with a Christian prayer, and more than half of those ministers "explicitly offered the prayer in the name of Jesus, Christ, the Savior, or the Son." That focus on Christian prayer amounts to state sponsorship of religion, the plaintiffs argued, which is expressly forbidden in the so called "establishment" clause of the First Amendment. The language in that amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This clause has generally been interpreted by courts to infer that government is forbidden from creating a national or state religion, or endorsing one religion over another. It is often referred to as the clause calling for "separation of church and state." But the Circuit Court did not rule on the merits of the "establishment" clause argument. Instead, the two majority justices said that the cost spend by the government to sponsor a daily prayer are not related to the content of the prayers, and are essentially unnecessary to the daily prayer program. The majority decision also says that the "program, as it is presently administered, is not mandated by statute. The origin of the practice is House Rule 10.2, and the rule merely provides that a prayer or invocation be given each meeting day before the house conducts business." The failure of the court to address the legality of the prayers as they pertain the the "establishment" clause may open up the ruling to appeal.