Seventh Circuit Upholds Legislative Prayers

Story

Seventh Circuit Upholds Legislative Prayers

Special Report - November 5, 2007
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to hear a challenge to the Indiana General Assembly’s practice of conducting public prayers before each of its sessions. According to Court records, Indiana’s “Minister of the Day” program involves the offering of a prayer prior to each legislative session by a member of the clergy with representatives filling in to offer the invocation only when no pastor is available. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the suit on behalf of four Indiana taxpayers who objected to the prayers because they were predominantly Christian. They sued the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Indiana General Assembly, challenging the House’s practice of opening each session with a prayer. The district court agreed with the plaintiffs that the practice of legislative prayer as implemented by the House violated the Establishment Clause and implemented a permanent injunction.

On appeal, the Seventh Circuit noted that although clergy are asked prior to the prayer to make it as “ecumenical” as possible, they receive no particular guidance concerning the form or content of the prayer. It also noted that during 2005, “the invocation was delivered by priests, Protestant ministers, several representatives, a rabbi and an imam. Of the forty-five prayers offered during this session for which text is available, twenty-nine prayers referenced ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ;’ others invoked ‘God,’ ‘Lord,’ ‘Almighty God,’ or ‘Heavenly Father.’”

The Seventh Circuit found that the taxpayers had no connection to the harm they alleged, stating: “The plaintiffs have not tied their status as taxpayers to the House’s allegedly unconstitutional practice of regularly offering a sectarian prayer. They have not shown that the legislature has extracted from them tax dollars for the establishment and implementation of a program that violates the Establishment Clause. The appropriations, which cover the incidental costs of the program, ‘did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures,’ attendant to the ‘Minister of the Day’ program.”

Therefore, the Court held that the taxpayers did not have standing to bring the action and remanded it to the lower court to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

“The practice of opening legislative sessions with prayers offered according to the dictates of the giver’s conscience is both historical and Constitutional,” said North Carolina Family Policy Council Attorney Tami Fitzgerald. “Forbidding Christians, whether clergy or not, from praying in public in the name of their own deity would be to deny what identifies them as Christians. This is the definition of a denial of free speech and the free exercise of religion.”