court rules on prayer in state house
Shortly after a federal appeals court ruled that the cross on the Lehigh County seal was a historical not a religious expression, another federal court has ruled that it’s constitutional for the state House of Representatives to ban guest chaplains who do not believe in God or a higher power from giving invocations to start their sessions.
These rulings came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a large World War I peace monument with a cross along a busy highway in Bladensburg, Maryland, was constitutional. Secular activists and strict believers in the separation of church and state, as outlined in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, find this to be an alarming trend, while traditionalists see it as walking a few steps back from the brink of insanity.
The ruling on the House prayer will allow the chamber’s leadership to go back to the time-honored procedure of rotating the opening prayer among adherents to various faiths who believe in God or other Supreme Being or deity such as Allah, Buddha, etc.
The ruling does not affect the state, Senate which allows nonbelievers to be part of the alternating process.
Our state legislative bodies are not the only ones which begin their sessions with a prayer or a moment of silence. The three members of the Carbon County Board of County Commissioners, for example, alternate giving a prayer to start their weekly meetings. I could find no local school board meetings which open with a prayer.
Both houses of Congress have chaplains who give invocations to open their respective sessions. There also are guest chaplains. A federal court ruled in favor of the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year that it was not compelled to allow an atheist to open its sessions.
In the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals state House ruling, Judge Thomas L. Ambro, writing for the 2-1 majority, said that since “prayer” implies a higher power, “only theistic invocations can achieve all the purposes of legislative prayer. As a matter of traditional practice, a petition to human wisdom and the power of science does not capture the full sense of ‘prayer,’ historically understood.” He also wrote that because atheists do not believe in a higher power, “they cannot offer religious prayer in the historical sense.”
Rob Boston, a senior adviser for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, slammed the ruling as “discriminatory and disturbing.” He said it shows a preference for those who believe in God while sending a message of exclusion, even scorn, to those who don’t.
“It’s yet another problematic line of recent decisions that allow government entities to endorse and promote religion (just about always Christianity) as long as it’s being done for ‘historic’ purposes,” Boston wrote in a blog.
Most area legislators agree with state Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill-Carbon, who said he viewed the decision as a “victory for people of all faiths, because it directly reflects our constitutional right to religious freedom and the public expression of those freedoms.”
Knowles went on to say that “atheists and other nonbelievers have no right to infringe upon long-established religious freedoms … traced all the way back to Pennsylvania’s founding and William Penn’s Great Holy Experiment.”
After the suit against the House prayer procedure was filed and was being litigated, the chamber’s leadership switched to the practice of having members alternate giving the invocation.
This led to further controversy on March 25 when Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, R-Clinton and Centre counties, gave a strident prayer that praised President Trump’s support of Israel.
Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, D-Philadelphia, the first Muslim legislator to serve in the state House, who was being sworn in the same day, found the prayer to be offensive to her beliefs.
Many legislators criticized Borowicz for the timing of her remarks, but she refused to back down, getting support from several local legislators, including Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon. While conceding that he would not have gone this route, Heffley said he did not consider Borowicz’s prayer offensive, noting that people pray differently.
By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com
Comments
Just have a moment of silence... please.
Rob is a community organizer against God, not a zealot for the constitution. We as a nation need to get back to our constitution, and break away from people like Rob, who seek to pervert it.
The phrase "wall of separation between the church and the state" was originally coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802.
The constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Both the free exercise clause and the establishment clause place restrictions on the government concerning laws they pass or interfering with religion. No restrictions are placed on religions except perhaps that a religious denomination cannot become the state religion.
Jefferson coined the the metaphor exclusively to keep the state out of the church's business, not to keep the church out of the state's business. This is history as it happened.
Look up thr SCOTUS 1892 deciision on this subject. It's been done before folks, but why? Who caused this to be argued back then? Look up the "Trinity Decison".
Original intent trumps all... unless you agree that erasing our history to replace it with lies is acceptable as Rob Boston does! The founders were 90% Trinitarian Christians. They united in fear of a state denominational religion not a state doctrinal religion. That's important to note.
History reveals the flight of the Pilgrims being out of persecution and oppression. This persecution and oppression was a result of the Church of England, the Anglican Church, becoming the state church. Got that? It's historically accurate. Jeffersons "Separation of Church and State" metaphor and its use is just the opposite of what was intended by the founders. Now we are rejecting any expression or symbol of our doctrinal religion, which our framers embraced. We now treating the doctrinal religion (Biblical Base) of our heritage like a virus. Rob Boston, and humanists have made it their mission to irradicate that doctrinal those doctrinal truths. They've nearly succeeded in immunizing through bastardizing the words of the founders, turning and twistind to meet an agenda... WHY? For who's gain?
This Transformed America, through ACLU, activist judges, humanists like Rob Boston, are the very evil that the establishment clause in our constitution was intended to prevent. Humanism is a religion, just as scientology is a religion. Oh... please define religion as it's root components reveal that word, not modern English.
Anyway the current state religion of humanism (atheism), is using the full power of the government to oppress the nonconformists to its doctrine, which is exactly the opposite doctrine of Christian Theism. How do you like that?
Now that I'm rolling along, let me give some light to one of my earlier questions, where and why did this all come about (atheism).
It was during the "Enlightenment Period". Atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) declared, and philosophers generally agree, without God there is no absolute truth and thus no universal moral standard of conduct. Humanist John Dewey (1859-1952), co-author and signer of the Humanist Manifesto I (1933), declared, "There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, then immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or moral absolutes." John Dewey is a recognized name, especially to you educators. He is a championed member of the Fabian Society. Look up the Fabians, they have a website.
I'm for truth, and without any absolute truth, you get what we have here today. It doesn't have to be this way. You win or loose by the way you choose. What's your choice? You have free will with God, humans won't always give you that. Got it?
Happy Labor Day
Another cut and paste job from Mike passed off as his own!
https://www.allabouthistory.org/separation-of-church-and-state.htm
It's the content you can't handle. You find anything that I post as someting to "Take on"
Respond to the content for a change. Show some intellegience. Do you disagree? Wjy?
Let's have a conversation.
Joe, you crack me up, whoever you are.
Mike Meyers
Walnutport PA
The ruling was a bad one. Our state should not be showing preference to any religions or spiritual groundings. The state should not be in the religion business period.
Mike Meyers
Walnutport PA
Done with you Joe.
My whole point is that all it takes is a little willingness to fact check the things your “news” sources provide you with to understand you are being manipulated. Renewable energy is 7%? Sure, I’ll believe it! Obama is from Kenya? No doubt! Climate change is a hoax? I’ll believe you!
Educate yourself on these issue and doubt just believe what you read. Especially don’t just cut and paste others content and make it out to be yours. I think God expects us to be wise and honest.
I read learn and pass on. What do you achieve?
Now in terms of the ideas you lifted from someone else and posted as your own, that author makes the mistake of assuming because some of the Founding Fathers were protestant Christians, this means their intent was that Christianity should be favored and other dogma, including humanism, should be rejected. I will direct the writer of the post you stole to article 6 of the constitution.
Did you ever look up the Fabians? Who cares if someone cuts and pastes? It's all about the point Joe. For a libertarian, you seem to bounce around alot.
Do you know Bertrand Russell? John Dewey? Are you enlightened? Meyers has some good stuff there, that I would think a libertarian would find interesting too. That's all.