ACLU: Do Away With Prayer in Government Bodies

Posted on October 25, 2007

Ohio’s House speaker, Jon Husted, after much thought has decided to ignore old guidelines that dictate prayers nonsectarian. Instead he is erring on the side of freedom and the Bill of Rights, saying he doesn’t want to get into the job of censoring prayer.

Of course the ACLU doesn’t like this, and offer their solution. Instead of allowing freedom of religious expression or censoring it, lets ban it!

The new policy won’t immediately inspire litigation, but could eventually lead there, said Chris Link, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio.

“The only solution is one that no one will have the political courage to embrace, which is to do away with prayer in government bodies,” Links said. “Once you put your foot in the water, you start to drown.”

The ACLU has initiated lawsuits in multiple states, including Indiana, Louisiana and Georgia, on the issue of prayer in governmental bodies. On the opposite side are ideological rivals such as the Alliance Defense Fund, which submitted a model prayer policy to the Ohio House and praised Husted’s change in policy.

In a 1983 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court carved out an exception for prayer to be allowed in Congress and state legislatures, even though the policy would seem to violate the separation of church and state, said Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, a forum for the study of First Amendment issues that is part of the Freedom Forum.

Hat tip: Conservative Culture

Share on Facebook

Tweet This Post

» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Church And State, News

Trackback URL

Comments

2 Responses to “ACLU: Do Away With Prayer in Government Bodies”

kerwin on October 25th, 2007 1:22 am

The ACLU obviously does not realize that banning an item is censoring it. For example if the FCC were to ban the word “*@%%@” it would be called censoring. You would think a group with so many lawyers would be smart enough to know that.
Pamela Stone on October 25th, 2007 2:16 pm

The ACLU and those like them need to be charged with treason and run out of America altogether. This country was founded on belief in God and those that are atheists need to accept it or move to another country that doesn’t believe in God.