I received a reply from ICLU Exec Director Fran Quigley, and it basically said that they were sad to hear I disagreed with their lawsuit and that it seems to be a misunderstanding of the suit itself, and here are some comments that might make it clearer.
Here is the press release from Quigley and ICLU...as well as my reply after that.
Two Good Reasons for Inclusive Legislative Prayer
By Fran Quigley
The case ICLU filed this week on behalf of a retired Methodist minister and three other Christian Hoosiers asks that the Indiana House of Representatives limit its official invocations to prayers that respect all beliefs. At first glance, the case seems morally and legally complicated, resting on difficult questions at the intersection of theology and law.
But, as Robert Fulghum pointed out in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, many questions aren't as complex as they seem. Sometimes, it is as simple as minding your manners.
Before we filed our legal action, we spoke with Rev. Dr. Edgar Towne, a Presbyterian minister and professor emeritus at Christian Theological Seminary. When asked his view of the House practice of beginning most if its official sessions with prayer that invokes only the Christian belief, oftentimes with sermonizing language that excludes the viability of faiths like Judaism and Islam, Rev. Towne's response was to the point. "Christians ought to be courteous enough to respect other people's faiths," he said.
The Star reports that the Rev. Ron Williams, of Pathway Community Church in Fort Wayne, exercised that courtesy in the prayer he delivered in the House this session. Rev. Williams purposely used the word God instead of Jesus, in a manner that many state legislatures ask their invocators to do. "I didn't feel like it was my responsibility to make a political statement within my prayer or be evangelistic in any way," Rev. Williams said. "It was an opportunity to focus on who God is and ask him to intervene in the lives of people of leadership."
The Star's editorial in opposition to the lawsuit, as well as some letters to the editor, noted that some evangelical Christians routinely feel their freedom to speak their faith is being curtailed. We ask those who are offended by this suit to recognize this is not a case about individual free speech.
After all, the ICLU has been the state's leading defender of free speech, including free religious expression, for more than a half-century. The clients in our legislative prayer case share our current docket with a a Baptist preacher seeking access to Indiana town sidewalks where he can voice his version of the Gospel, and a Christian family who we are helping gain recognition of their faith by their child's public school. If any of the clergy or lawmakers who gave sectarian prayers at the start of the House sessions want to deliver a fire-and-brimstone sermon on the steps of the Statehouse or at the foot of Monument Circle, not to mention in their homes or churches, the ICLU stands ready to fight for their right to do so.
But since this case is about official government-sanctioned prayer, rather than individuals' free speech rights, it calls for Christians to recognize the responsibility we hold when our religious belief enjoys dominant status in every major political venue in the land, from the White House to the Statehouse. How would we feel if we were in a distinct minority and a strong Islamic prayer was delivered at the beginning of nearly every government session? What courtesy would we want extended to us and our beliefs?
Of course, federal litigation is not filed on the basis of good manners alone, so this case is also well-grounded in the U.S. Constitutional principles which protect minority beliefs.
By insisting that the United States become the first nation in history not to align itself with a particular religion, the founders of this country firmly rejected not just European precedent but also a colonial tradition of intertwinement of church and state. Virginia, for example, was an officially Anglican colony, and a young James Madison witnessed Virginia officials beating and jailing a Baptist minister for preaching the wrong religion. Quakers were executed in Massachusetts Bay Colony. Jews and Catholics could not hold office in many colonies.
The framers of the Constitution, including Madison, deliberately steered away from that church-state legacy. Article Six forbids a testament of religious faith from being part of an oath of political office, and the First Amendment blocks government endorsement of religion. The framers had a radical plan to ensure religious freedom by keeping government out of the pulpit, and for 216 years that approach has allowed the U.S. to evolve into what is now the most religiously diverse and religiously free country in the world.
Citing that proud legacy, even very conservative judges have recently ruled that the Constitution forbids sectarian prayer from opening a legislative session. These court decisions hold that official sponsorship of heavily Christian-ized prayer risks the perception that a governmental stamp of approval has been awarded to one religious belief, and that is an unacceptable risk in these free United States.
Courtesy and the constitution. Those are two pretty good reasons to ensure that government-sanctioned prayer does not make any of our fellow Hoosiers feel unwelcome in our Statehouse.
You can't claim that because the prayer is uniquely Christian, and that such a prayer isn't fair in some way toward people of other religions makes it wrong. Despite the distorted ruling of SCOTUS on this issue and other, lower state courts...the US Constitution doesn't say government can deny religious liberty as long as it doesn't hurt anyone's feelings. That would be beyond absurd. And, if the speaker is a Christian, isn't a demand that he not give specific prayers to the Christian God a denial of his freedoms, no matter if you think this isn't fair and that it doesn't include all hoosiers? The speaker, as speaker, is also an American citizen, and if he gives a prayer as speaker- he doesn't automatically lose his rights.
You can't base laws on if they will hurt someone's feelings or not, or whether or not they will feel included. And, that seems to be the deal here...the speaker has no Constitutional reason to make everyone feel included, and denying him his rights (and the rights of any other government official) is hardly Constitutional in any sense.
The claim that the founders somehow wanted to seperate religion and public life would be stretching anything they said to the limit. We know that most of the founders were Christian, and that they knew religion could not seperated from government...Washington and Jefferson (for starters) said so. Also, they explained the fact that many of our basic rights came, not from them, but from God himself...and we know they were referring to a Christian God, since it's hard to imagine a Christian even accepting another God.
I understand the suit, and it pretty much comes down to- tip toeing around the feelings of others. You can't base law or legal interpretation of the law on who might get their feelings hurt when someone does something...and you cannot work to deny a guaranteed right because someone's actions might make others feel left out. It also comes down to the fact that you call this government sanctioned prayer...but, how can that be? Doesn't government sanctioned action have to be connected to law or some kind? Government makes laws...laws that affect our lives. If the government itself isn't creating laws of religion that affect us all, then how is this prayer being sanctioned by the government? Again, you cannot deny an American his or her rights simply because he or she is a member of government. If a member of the Indiana House prays to Christ...I'm not sure what reasonable hoosiers would find this a government sanction of Christianity. Even so, if we go back to the 1st Amendment, this action itself would not be illegal. Government sanctioned religion isn't the same as Congress (or the Indiana legislature) passing a LAW regarding an establishment of religion. There are no laws being passed here, and no one would be fooled into thinking there are...which is why this is, in the end, a feel-good suit aimed at making a minority feel good about themselves, which is, again, not what law is about.
It would seem to me that denying a Christian a right to publicly (in his capacity as speaker) pray to the Christian God in particular is doing just what the 1st Amendment says government cannot do.
That's why this action is not only unwarranted but also in clear defiance of the founders' words. This is clearly what they wanted to prevent when they wrote the Constitution, and I would hope that all civil liberties groups would try to defend what they said, and not work to defend a minority who has no true legal standing. I'm afraid the ICLU gets a bad rap, just as most other civil liberties groups have throughout the nation for their (whether merely perceived or not) attacks on Christianity.
Thanks so much for your time
Joshua Taj Bozeman
Evansville, Indiana
http://www.thebluesite.com
josh@thebluesite.com