DEMOCRACY IN ACTION: ATHEISTS SUE Pennsylvania HOUSE

Be prepared for an eventual landmark decision in a Pennsylvania lawsuit that will have repercussions across the land.

The group American Atheists has joined with Americans United for Separation of Church and State in a federal filing on Aug. 25.

They're challenging a state policy that prohibits atheists from offering invocations at the opening of Pennsylvania House of Representatives sessions.

Specifically, the case involves five people and three organizations: Pennsylvania Nonbelievers Inc., Dillsburg Area Freethinkers and Lancaster Freethought Society, all of which are suing House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, plus House Parliamentarian Clancy Myer and five lawmakers.

The plaintiffs say they've repeatedly been denied an equal opportunity to offer secular invocations.

"This is about fairness and equality," said Amanda Knief, American Atheists national legal and public policy director.

"If the House wants to have invocations, they can't simply exclude an invocation that would represent the more than 2.5 million nonreligious Pennsylvanians."

As predicted, the floodgates were opened for this kind of lawsuit following a 2014 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Greece v. Galloway.

That ruling said governments have a right to open meetings with prayers and invocations as long as they don't discriminate against community minority religious groups, including atheists. Even more, this ruling potentially opens the door to those who pray to any sort of deity. Take your pick. Equal treatment. Things are going to get interesting.

And so this recent lawsuit is the perfect example of democracy in action, a scenario where majority rule is balanced by the protection of minorities' rights.

President Thomas Jefferson put it this way in 1801: "The minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect and to violate would be oppression."

In other words, government must protect minorities against tyranny by the majority.

So why would an atheist, for example, wish to offer an invocation?

The lawsuit makes it clear: "Like theists, the plaintiffs are capable of giving inspiring and moving invocations, similar to nontheistic invocations that have been given in other communities across the United States. There is just one significant difference between people whom the defendants allow to give opening invocations and the plaintiffs: the former believe in God, while the plaintiffs do not."

The plaintiffs also are saying nonbelievers in Pennsylvania are treated like a disfavored minority who can be discriminated against.

This is serious business.

While a powerful faction in the Pennsylvania House might want to keep invocations restricted to certain religions or maybe their own favorite beliefs, it's a policy that's blatantly unfair, discriminatory and will never stand up in a court of law.

Let's hope the upcoming litigation doesn't cost state taxpayers too much money because, quite frankly, Pennsylvania lawmakers will lose. The feds will rule in favor of the plaintiffs.

Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are about to experience a revelation.

They wish to discriminate based on faith and beliefs.

They don't stand a prayer of a chance.

By Donald R. Serfass | dserfass@tnonline.com