Court: Prayers at government meetings can be directed to Jesus

By The Associated Press



ATLANTA, Ga. — Cobb County commissioners won't have to exclude Jesus Christ from the prayers at their meetings under a new federal court ruling.

U.S. District Judge Richard Story ruled on Sept. 8 that clergy who pray at the meetings could "identify the deity to whom they direct their prayer." But he also took issue with the way commissioners choose the clergy who appear at the meetings because it was clear that "certain faiths were categorically excluded from the list."

The case was filed in August 2005 by the Georgia Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of seven people who felt the references to Jesus were an unconstitutional government endorsement of Christianity.

ACLU lawyer Maggie Garrett said she was "pleased that Judge Story reaffirmed that repeated sectarian prayers can violate the Constitution" but disappointed that the judge didn't feel Cobb crossed the line.

"We feel in this case, it did cross the line," she said.

The ACLU has not decided whether to file an appeal, Garrett said.

Sam Olens, chairman of the Cobb County Board of Commissioners, wrote in an e-mail that he is "thrilled" about the ruling.

"Our policy of engaging all religious faiths is constitutional," he wrote.

Across the state, local government boards routinely open meetings with prayers, including many that invoke Christ's name. State legislators bow their heads to invocations when the Legislature is in session.

For more information, go to the link below.

www.firstamendmentcenter.org

Freedom of Religion, NOT Freedom from religion

The U.S. Supreme Court would disagree.

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So you're saying that people aren't free to not be religious?

WOW.

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i would define freedom from religion as the right to not have to come into contact with religious speech. if my neighbor put up a cross in his front lawn whereas i would have to look at it every day, freedom from religion would give me the right to have my neighbor remove the cross... so unless you see freedom from religion differently, then i think that the supreme court would disagree with you.

the way i see it is that if cobb county wants to open their meetings with an inspirational message and that those chosen to deliver the message are fairly chosen by the body, then there's no foul. if there are any that don't want to pray that's fine. nobody is requiring them to bow their heads. however, if those of different faith wish to participate in delivering this message and are systematically excluded, then the behavior of cobb county would infringe upon first amendment rights. -M

I was disagreeing with Keith's post on principle. I think he'd support things like mandatory school prayer, etc. I think it's okay that religious people pray in public. No big deal.

If the cross violates a zoning ordinance, or neighborhood covenant, however, it's going to have to come down.

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well, yeah, of course... well.. unless that cross happens to be the big honkin' one that was erected along i-35 in edmond. : ) -M

Better on I-35 than on the city seal

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It should be on I-35 and the City Seal. By the way, that cross looks great on I-35.

Now, back on subject....

Yeah, well Keith, you can't always get your way. If Christianity were our official religion, that might be the case. Fortunately, it's not.

If it was, however, I'd insist that the Pope set the agenda since Catholics outnumber Baptists.

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Secular Humanism is every bit a religion as Christianity. There is no neutral.

Is it Luke? What deity does secular humanism contemplate? How is the state endorsing secular humanism on a day to day basis?

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Hate to say but this one seems a little much for ACLU to be spending time on...A quick prayer at the start doesn't offend me..Just keep it brief and then get on with the meetings

The ACLU often takes cases so that it can play the role of the devil's advocate. They must focus the argument so that whatever ruling the court comes up with will probably be narrow and specific instead of broad and far reaching.

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Some of the information regarding Secular Humanism in this post is from Wikipedia which I cite.

Secular Humanism is not simply the denial of a deity. It is a broad philisophical world view and life view. Simply denying that a view is "religious" so as to evade the separation clause does not make it so. In fact, Secular Humanism shares many characteristics of other religious worldviews while staunchly opposing most traditional relgions.

This is a very big issue simply because if Secular Humanism is a religion, then it should be removed from the public arena based on the (non-law) Separation clause in the same way Christianity has been. There are several court cases that have addressed this very issue.

For example, in Torasco vs. Watkins (1961), the judge made this statement in a footnote: "Among religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism, and others."

In the 1957 case Fellowship of Humanity vs. County of Alameda, an organization "sought a tax exemption on the ground that they used their property 'solely and exclusively for religious worship.' Despite the group's non-theistic beliefs, the court determined that the activities of the Fellowship of Humanity, which included weekly Sunday meetings, were analogous to the activities of theistic churches and thus entitled to an exemption."

The Washington Ethical Society also won tax exemption based on it being a religious organization regardless of the fact that it denied a deity.

And here's the main point from Wikipedia: "Religious groups resentful of the separation of church and state attach great significance to the granting of legal protections to non-theistic organizations as religions. They argue that secular humanism—and by association secularism—has been granted religious status, that secularism in government and in the schools constitutes state favoritism towards a particular religion, and a double standard is used in granting religious protections to these groups while allowing the teaching of ideas such as evolution which are consistent with secularism."

If, indeed, Secular Humanism is a religion, then there are serious ramifications when their views are voiced in the public arena.

The article confuses what I would deem a more 'passive' belief with a more 'active' belief. In the Fellowship case which you cited (which you might find the full text of if you looked up 315 P.2d 394), the Court held as follows:

This case, however, was later partially overruled in Kalka v. Hawk, 215 F.3d 90, 2000. In this case, an incarcerate was not allowed by prison officials to form groups to discuss humanistic principles. He sued on the ground that his first amendment rights were being violated (and it is well established that a prison cannot interfere with inmates' religious worship). In Kafka, the court discussed teh Torasco case in some detail, in what I'd call dictum, it stated that the Torasco wasn't actually on point.

It discussed Washington Ethical Society as well, and held along those same lines.

Finally, the Kafka court held

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Luke,

Wikipedia is a good source for information, but for contraversial topics, it's not very good. It seems what won the day in Torasco was not that secular humanism is in fact a religion. It seems (from the ruling in Kafka that the test for religion for tax purposes was an activities test. In other words, a court when faced with a question as to whether or not a group was religious for the purposes of taxation that the inquiry would focus on the activities of that group -- did it behave like a religion? If yes, the exemption is granted. If not, then no exemption is granted.

The Wikipedia interpretation really isn't very good at all. In fact, it's making some very broad conclusions from some very narrow holdings which were further narrowed by a higher court. That's not an exactly honest way to try and report facts as Wikipedia purports to do.

At any rate, I don't blame you for it. I just happen to have access to Westlaw here, so I can go through the citing/overruling references which as shown above strip your point of any factual basis.

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The content is what is at stake though. If you're a Christian and the content of your beliefs entail expressing them in various ways including public arenas, presently that is deemed illegal. However, Secular Humanists enjoy the privilege of expressing their beliefs in public arenas without consequence. One religious worldview is given precedence and that is what Christians (among others) are trying to expose.

Your entire argument that "secular humanism is a religion" relies on caselaw which is demonstrably bad law. If you're concerned that secular humanism is a religion, make your case.

It's more of a philosophy than a religion as far as I can tell. Secular humanism can operate alongside any theistic religion out there. That sometimes people get together and talk about it is no evidence that it's a religion. You'll need more than that to identify it as such. The subscription to some divine being, creator, etc., some faith in some sort of supernatural being, occurance, etc., some belief system in life after death -- all are components of religion. None are part of the philosophy of secular humanism.

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