Tag Archives: State: New York

Bloomberg: Governor Andrew Cuomo’s bill guaranteeing abortion rights that would align New York and U.S. law was killed in the senate after a group of breakaway Democrats co-leading the chamber dropped it.

Times Union: An attempt to make an abortion provision more palatable to Senate Republicans sputtered through the Capitol like a loose balloon Thursday before falling flat as lawmakers scattered for the weekend.

The Economist: It’s no wonder the second circuit found it necessary to justify its use of “legal judgment” when embarking on this adventure in casuistry. The rationale simply makes no sense. Which isn’t to say that the court reached the wrong result.

Ecumenical News: A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” said Brett Harvey, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Greece. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.”

Gabrielle M. Speach and Elissa Sanchez-Speach at Public Discourse: It doesn’t advance women’s equality or wellbeing for the law to allow late-term abortions for any reasons pertinent to a woman’s “health.”

Alan Sears at Alliance Defending Freedom: Last week,  as Breitbart notes, “… the Supreme Court granted review in what could be the biggest religious liberty victory for Americans of faith in decades,” when it agreed – at the request of Alliance Defending Freedom – to hear a case on public invocations in which the defendants are represented by our ministry’s attorneys.

Times Union: Kelly Cummings, the top spokesperson for Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos, issued a statement accusing Gov. Andrew Cuomo of playing to “extremists who want to expand late-term abortion” with the last provision in his just-introduced Women’s Equality Act.

Politicker: “We are profoundly distressed by the introduction of a bill in New York State today that would ease restrictions in state law on late-term abortion and runs the serious risk of broadly expanding abortion access at all stages of gestation,” they said in a joint statement. “This legislation would [be] … potentially decriminalizing even forced or coerced abortions.”

Christian News Network: Officials in a small Washington town have decided not to prohibit the mentioning of Jesus’ name in city council prayers.

AFLC: Today, the American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York against several officials from the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo) for permitting an unruly mob of pro-abortion protestors to purposely disrupt a peaceful, pro-life demonstration on the university’s campus.

WSJ: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to introduce contentious abortion legislation on Tuesday, and his aides and women’s rights groups have identified Republican state senators whom they will pressure to support it, according to people familiar with the matter.

Champion Newspapers: In Chino Valley, the fire and school boards and Chino city council have such invocations. Chino Hills dropped them on advice of its attorney and satisfied its faith by conducting meetings under the large motto above the council dais, “In God We Trust.”

Brett Harvey on Intersection of Faith and Reason with Frank Sontag | MP3 audio 16:34 mins | Brett Harvey, Joel Oster, Who Said That?: A Simple Question That May Change the Way Courts View Legislative Prayer, Federalist Society Engage Volume 14, Issue 1 February 2013 | Town of Greece v. Galloway information page

The Economist: As puffed up as the sense of outrage is from the separationists, the overbaked pieties of parties defending the town’s monthly religious exercises are even more exaggerated. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” says David Cortman of the Alliance Defending Freedom. Nothing, Mr Cortman contends, should interfere with “this sacred practice” of public prayer. However the six Catholics and three Jews on the Supreme Court handle this case, we can rest assured that more sanctimony and unprincipled grasping at straws is on its way. (links to ADF Media site)

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Casey Mattox tells OneNewsNow the bill would essentially regulate the speech of pro-life clinics. “Pregnancy resource centers, which offer real help and hope to women, shouldn’t be punished by political allies of abortion sellers,” the attorney contends. “These centers serve women free of charge without burdening the taxpayers.”

Kathryn Jean Lopez at National Review (May 21): “No one confuses sessions of Congress with a church service.” You can say that again. Brett Harvey, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom makes this point to me in an interview for National Review Online, about the case of an upstate New York town’s desire to pray before town-council meetings. Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to hear the town of Greece’s case after a Second Circuit Appeals Court ruling found that because the town has predominantly Christian clergy, it needs to import non-Christians to lead the town council in prayer so non-Christians do not “feel like outsiders.”

Amy Kotlarz at Catholic Globe (CNS): Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization founded in 1994 that advocates for the religious liberty of Americans and people around the world, contends that the town did not regulate the content of the prayers, permitted citizens of any religious tradition — or no tradition — to volunteer to say prayers, and did not discriminate in who was selected as “prayer-givers.” Alliance Defending Freedom is representing the Town of Greece on a pro bono basis . . . “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” said a statement from David Cortman, the alliance’s senior counsel. “The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the ‘history and tradition of this country.’ America continues this cherished practice.”

CNSNews: The New York City Health Department’s NYC teen website now includes an app that teens can download to their smart phones to get information on “sexual health,” including where they can get birth control and abortions.

Charisma News: Legislation on freedom to worship was passed widely in the New York Senate last year but held up in the New York Senate Assembly by Speaker Sheldon Silver. Litigation is also pending in the U.S. federal court for the Second Circuit, Bronx Household of Faith v. NYC Department of Education. (Alliance Defending Freedom photo credit)

Marci Hamilton at Justia.com: They have the Alliance Defense Fund representing them, and an amicus brief has been filed on their behalf by the Foundation for Moral Law. (That foundation is led by Judge Roy Moore, who belligerently violated the Establishment Clause by bringing his own two-ton granite rendition of a version of the Ten Commandments into the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court). Other amici include the Liberty Institute and the National Legal Foundation, which advertises itself as a “Christian public interest law firm”.  It is no secret that these groups are aggressively seeking to re-introduce prayer in public schools, a movement that includes many who insist that this is a “Christian country.”

Joe Infranco at NY Daily News: “To pray or not to pray?” That is the question the Supreme Court will answer after agreeing to hear a case pitting the Town of Greece in western New York against two of its residents. Fortunately, America’s religious heritage has already answered this question affirmatively. On Sept. 7, 1774, in Philadelphia, the Rev. Jacob Duché delivered the first prayer of the Continental Congress, before representatives from 13 states. He concluded with a brief invocation to “the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.”

Baptist Press at Townhall: “The resolution is more than symbolic,” wrote lawyer Jordan Lorence in an email. Lorence is handling the case against the city’s policy in court for Alliance Defending Freedom. “The passage of a resolution urging enactment of specific legislation is the formal way the NYC Council makes its will known to state lawmakers.”

The New American: But Joel Oster of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the town of Greece in the case, said that the appeals court ruling forces the city to become a prayer monitor in its meetings, and turns the reverent tradition of prayer into a government-supervised affirmative action program. “Since this nation’s founding, public meetings have been opened with prayers offered according to the conscience of the speaker,” noted Oster. “There is no legal reason why a town cannot engage in this practice today with people from within its own community. The district court rightly affirmed the constitutionality of the town’s policy.” He added that secular groups with a grudge against Christianity “cannot be allowed to force local governments to engage in strange hoops and hurdles that effectively eliminate prayers by making them too difficult to take place.”
Oster pointed out that the U.S. Constitution “has never required any local government to engage in such gymnastics to have prayer, as is clearly seen by the prayers of America’s Founding Fathers. Prayer-givers have a right protected by the First Amendment to engage in speech that reflects their own conscience and religion during such prayers. That does not make the prayers an endorsement by the town itself of any particular religion.” ADF attorney Brett Harvey told National Review . . . In taking the case to the Supreme Court, the ADF has been joined by attorney Thomas Hungar, whom Ken Klukowski of the Family Research Council called “one of the most accomplished Supreme Court litigators in the nation. [more]

Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO: There was an oddly timed Memorial Day piece in the New York Times appearing to dismiss the voice of the Catholic Church – and specifically Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York — on religious freedom. It actually bolsters the Church’s case.

NJ.com: The case — Greece, NY v. Galloway, Susan — could have a lasting affect on local board meetings across the country, including municipalities in South Jersey like West Deptford and Elk, where township committee meetings are regularly opened with the mayor and board leading residents in reciting the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer central to Christianity.

Religion Clause Blog: The New York Times reported Sunday that despite the leadership of New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan in the fight against requiring religious organizations to cover contraceptive services in their health plans, the New York Archdiocese has been quietly, but reluctantly, indirectly paying for contraceptive coverage for thousands of its unionized employees for over a decade.

Seattle Times: The town is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group that presses faith-based cases in courts nationwide. ADF senior counsel David Cortman said the framers of the Constitution prayed while drafting the Bill of Rights. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” Cortman said.

God Discussion: Last year an appeals court in Greece, New York ruled that prayers given by a Christian minister at government functions is unconstitutional. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom appealed and the high-court ruling, expected by June 2014, will resolve conflicting appeals-court rulings about religious expression.

Via Walter Russell Mead, I learn that the New York City Council passed a resolution on Marc DeGirolami at Mirror of Justice: Wednesday calling for the granting of equal access to churches and houses of worship to public school property (it calls for new legislation to amend the New York State Education Law in this respect). Over at CLR Forum, I have on various occasions discussed the “serpentine path” of litigation in the Bronx Household of Faith case . . .

Brett Harvey at Alliance Defending Freedom: Is the government obligated to control the way people pray in public? The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide this very question. You see, the Town of Greece, NY has been sued because, when they open their town council meetings, they refused to censor the prayers of citizens who volunteered to deliver the opening invocation.

The Baptist Standard: David Cortman, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the town, told the Post the framers of the Constitution prayed while drafting the Bill of Rights. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” he said. The Supreme Court case, Town of Greece vs. Galloway, will be argued this fall.

CNS on CatholicPhilly.com: “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” said a statement from David Cortman, the alliance’s senior counsel. “The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the ‘history and tradition of this country.’ America continues this cherished practice.”

Rick Garnett at Mirror of Justice: First, I think it would be a good thing if the possibility Eugene raises – i.e., that the Court might re-examine the so-called “endorsement test” — came to pass. I think the criticisms directed at that test in Steven Smith’s 1987 article had and have force. Next, even if the justices leave the “endorsement test” in place, I hope they do not follow the Second Circuit in importing that test into the legislative-prayer context.

World Magazine: “The resolution is more than symbolic,” wrote lawyer Jordan Lorence in an email. Lorence is handling the case against the city’s policy in court for Alliance Defending Freedom. “The passage of a resolution urging enactment of specific legislation is the formal way the NYC Council makes its will known to state lawmakers.”

Brett Harvey appeared on the Don Kroah Show to discuss Galloway v. Town of Greece. | MP3 audio 7:31 mins

David Cortman appeared on the Hugh Hewitt Show to discuss Galloway v. Town of Greece.| MP3 audio 7:31 mins

Christian Post: Despite the current victory, cited as “symbolic” by Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Jordan Lorence, there is still a federal battle waging in regard to the Bronx Household of Faith v. Board of Education of the City of New York court case. [more --- history of the litigation detailed]

We commend the New York City Council for urging the state legislature to repeal the Department of Education’s policy banning worship services from vacant school buildings. Alliance Defending Freedom will continue to defend the freedom of churches and other religious groups to meet in public schools until they are as free as other groups to serve their communities.

KRQE (AP): The town is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group that presses faith-based cases in courts nationwide. ADF senior counsel David Cortman said the framers of the Constitution prayed while drafting the Bill of Rights. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” Cortman said.

NC Register: “It is perfectly constitutional to allow community members to ask for God’s blessing according to their conscience,” Brett Harvey, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, told Catholic News Agency on May 21. “A Supreme Court ruling reaffirming this historic tradition and making clear that prayer-givers are permitted to pray consistent with the dictates of their own conscience would both uphold the original understanding of the Constitution and provide needed clarity to put an end to these attacks on our American heritage.”

Patheos: Furthermore, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian non-profit organization based in Arizona where I live, appealed this case to the Supreme Court in briefs with support from 49 members of Congress and 18 state attorneys general.

Christian News Network: “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” stated ADF senior counsel David Cortman. “The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the ‘history and tradition of this country.’ America continues this cherished practice.”

Brett Harvey appeared on radio to discuss the case. | A Closer Look with Sheila Liaugminas at Relevant Radio – MP3 audio 13:48 mins | The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio — MP3 audio 12:05 mins

Blog.Lawyers.com: The court could limit its ruling to legislative prayer, or it could broaden it to encompass governmental prayer in general. “It could invert the rule and the exception, and turn the general rule that government cannot endorse religion into a much narrower rule that the government cannot endorse religion in the public schools and that the government can do what it likes outside of the public schools,” says Lund.

Religion Clause Blog: In Check v. New York City Department of Education, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71124 (ED NY, May 20, 2013), a New York federal district court adopted a magistrate’s recommendations (2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 71223, March 22, 2013) and refused to issue a preliminary injunction to require admission of plaintiff’s 5-year old daughter to school without required immunizations.

FRC Washington Update: Given the long tradition of legislative prayer in America, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about the case. If our friends at ADF prevail, there’s a strong possibility that the Court will not only affirm public prayer but significantly strengthen the religious freedom rights of all Americans. In the meantime, I encourage you to pray–publicly!–that the Supreme Court sides with America’s First Freedom!

CBN: “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” Harvey said. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.”

USA Today: The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom appealed and the high-court ruling, expected by June 2014, will resolve conflicting appeals-court rulings about religious expression. Tuesday’s invocation was to have been given by Serah Blain, executive director of the Secular Coalition of Arizona. But Mendez said House staff had no record of his request to allow Blain’s remarks, so he offered the remarks himself.

CNA/EWTN on DFW Catholic: “The founders prayed while drafting our constitution’s Bill of Rights,” he said. “America continues this cherished practice, and a few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like.” Harvey said there have been 20 different federal lawsuits filed against local governments asking that they abandon their traditions of prayer. “A ruling against the Town of Greece would multiply the attacks on the historic practice of seeking divine guidance at public meetings and would suggest that the authors of the Bill of Rights were violating the Constitution, even as they were writing it,” he said.

Christian Examiner: “Americans certainly should have the same freedom as the Founders did,” Cortman told Baptist Press. “[Praying before government meetings] was a practice that was established over 200 years ago and certainly should be just as constitutional today.” The fact that most of the prayers offered were by Christians only reflected the town’s makeup, Cortman said. “The policy is open and neutral to anyone in the community,” Cortman said. “It’s merely a matter of the demographics of the community that make up the balance of prayers. What is a town to do? Engage in a religious Gerrymander and begin busing in people from all over the state and ask them, ‘What do you believe? What is your religion? How will you pray?’ That is the exact opposite of what the city should be doing. They should just open the forum and let the people in the community pray according to the dictates of their conscience. That’s what this town was doing.”
If the town begins monitoring the prayers and not allowing certain words, you have the “the local government controlling” the prayers — which itself would be unconstitutional, Cortman said.

Lyle Denniston at Constitution Daily: When the court agreed to hear the new prayer case from the city of Greece, New York, a community of about 100,000 people near Rochester, it stepped into a case in which a prayer practice at the opening of the town board meeting was struck down by a lower court using the endorsement theory. And, by granting review of that specific decision, the justices may well have been telegraphing a desire to second-guess the endorsement theory when prayers are recited at the outset of a public meeting of a government agency, with adults making up most of the audience.

Christian Post: “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” Brett Harvey, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, said, according to USA Today. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.”

Florida Today: Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian nonprofit group, appealed the case to the Supreme Court. It is supported in separate briefs by 49 mostly Republican members of Congress and 18 state attorneys general.

Robert Barnes at the Washington Post: The religious legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom represented the town of Greece — a community of about 100,000 residents near Rochester — in challenging the appeals court decision. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” senior counsel David Cortman said in a statement. “The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the ‘history and tradition of this country.’ ”

Business Insider: Thomas Hungar, representing Greece’s city hall with support from Alliance Defending Freedom, a social conservative group, said “legislative prayer” is deeply rooted in American history. “We hope the court will reaffirm the settled understanding that such prayers, offered without improper motive and in accordance with the conscience of the prayer-giver, are constitutional,” the lawyer said.

Stephen Prothero at CNN: That is unlikely to happen, since there is, as Alliance Defending Freedom has argued, an “unambiguous and unbroken history” of prayer in government bodies in the United States. But there is an equally long history of ensuring that these prayers are, as Americans United has observed, “inclusive and non-sectarian.” And those in Greece were neither.

Associated Baptist Press: David Cortman, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the town, told the Post the framers of the Constitution prayed while drafting the Bill of Rights. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” he said.

Salon: As reported by USA Today: . . . David Cortman, a lawyer for the town, said in a statement that prayer at council meetings is consistent with a longstanding tradition of prayer at government functions: “Americans today should be as free as the founders were to pray,” he said. “The founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.”

JD Journal: The non-Christian town residents will be presented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, while the town will be represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, whose senior counsel, David Cortman, claims the framers of the Constitution prayed during the drafting of the Bill of Rights, and, as the Washington Post reports, “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray.”

Democrat and Chronicle: Alliance Defending Freedom, the national religious defense group representing Greece pro bono, said the court “affirmed America’s long-standing practice of opening public meetings with prayer in 1983 and now has the opportunity to do so again.” It is supported in separate briefs by 49 mostly Republican members of Congress and 18 state attorneys general . . . “The practice of legislative prayer is firmly embedded in the history and traditions of this nation,” said Thomas Hungar of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, the attorney who filed the challenge. “We hope the court will reaffirm the settled understanding that such prayers, offered without improper motive and in accordance with the conscience of the prayer-giver, are constitutional.”

GOP USA: Recent legal attacks by people offended by such prayers have created significant confusion in the lower courts. “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” said Brett Harvey, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.

Religion News Service at Washington Post: Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian nonprofit group, appealed the case to the Supreme Court. It is supported in separate briefs by 49 mostly Republican members of Congress and 18 state attorneys general.“A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” said the ADF’s senior counsel, Brett Harvey.

Christianity Today: The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the town in the case, says a previous, 30-year-old ruling still stands, settling the matter.

Ken Klukowski at Breitbart: ADF then asked Thomas Hungar of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, one of the most accomplished Supreme Court litigators in the nation—to become lead counsel on the case and join with ADF in asking the Supreme Court for review by filing a petition for certiorari. Today the Supreme Court granted that petition. ADF’s David Cortman says: Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray. The Founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, and the Supreme Court has ruled that public prayer is part of the “history and tradition of this country.” American continues this cherished practice.

ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM NEWS RELEASE May 20, 2013 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT MEDIA AND PUBLIC RELATIONS: (480) 444-0020 orwww.adfmedia.org/home/contact   Prayer will be heard on high US Supreme Court to weigh in on prayers presented before public meetings   WASHINGTON — The U.S. …

Adam Liptak at NY Times: In 1983, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.” David Cortman, a lawyer for the town, said its practices were consistent with that tradition. “Americans today should be as free as the founders were to pray,” he said in a statement. “The founders prayed while drafting our Constitution’s Bill of Rights.”

LifeSiteNews: A 20-year-old man has confessed to smothering a 14-year-old girl, keeping her body in a suitcase, and trying to set her remains on fire because she would not have an abortion, police say.

Wall Street Journal (PR Newsire): Family Research Council (FRC) commends the U.S. Supreme Court for its decision today granting review in Town of Greece v. Galloway. If the Court decides in favor of the town of Greece, the decision could become the most significant religious liberty victory in half a century. Director of FRC’s Center for Religious Liberty, Ken Klukowski, J.D., submitted an amicus brief on behalf of 49 Members of Congress supporting the Alliance Defending Freedom’s petition in this case addressing public prayer before town meetings.

AP: Reacting to the court action Monday, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United executive director, said, “A town council meeting isn’t a church service, and it shouldn’t seem like one.” The town is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based group that presses faith-based cases in courts nationwide. ADF senior counsel David Cortman said the framers of the Constitution prayed while drafting the Bill of Rights. “Americans today should be as free as the Founders were to pray,” Cortman said.

AP: The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a new case on the intersection of religion and government in a dispute over prayers used to open public meetings.

Religion Clause Blog: The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to weigh in on the extensively litigated issue of opening city council meetings with prayer.

Americans United for Sep. of Church and State: Supreme Court Should Rule Against Sectarian Prayers Before Town Board Meetings, Says Americans United

U Legal Director Ayesha N. Khan, who directed the litigation for Americans United and will argue the Town of Greece v. Galloway case before the Supreme Court, said the justices should uphold the lower court’s ruling. “Legislative bodies should focus on serving the community and stay out of the business of promoting religion,” Khan said.

Reuters: The Alliance for Defending Freedom, a group that describes itself as an advocate for the rights of people to express their faith, is spearheading the town’s legal fight. The group’s lawyers point out that the town has never regulated the content of prayers and did not discriminate in selecting prayer-givers. “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” Brett Harvey, one of the town’s lawyers, said in a statement. Galloway and Stephens have the support of another advocacy group, Americans United For Separation of Church and State.

Headline and Global News: Brett Harvey, senior consul for Alliance Defending Freedom, an advocacy group whose aim is “transforming the legal system and advocating for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage and family,” according to their website, argues that a few offended people shouldn’t be able to bring down a longstanding tradition. “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because the heard something they didn’t like,” Harvey said. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.”

USA Today: “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like,” said Brett Harvey, a senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. “Because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.” Thomas Hungar of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, the attorney who filed the challenge, said, “The practice of legislative prayer is firmly embedded in the history and traditions of this nation. We hope the court will reaffirm the settled understanding that such prayers, offered without improper motive and in accordance with the conscience of the prayer-giver, are constitutional.”