Tag Archives: Topic: Prayer

Charles Haynes at the Jackson Sun: But what do school administrators do when a student speaker decides to offer a prayer before a captive audience at graduation or some other school-sponsored event?

Moore American: Cleveland County Commissioners will join a handful of Oklahoma county commissioners that have added prayer at the beginning of the weekly meetings. In this case, Commissioner Rusty Sullivan pointed out that the prayer will be conducted prior to the meeting being called to order.

NewsOK.com: House Bill 1940, by Bennett, would allow school boards to adopt policies giving students the right to deliver an inspirational message, even if it has a religious theme, at school assemblies.

The Star Phoenix: A Saskatoon man, who filed a complaint with the Saskatchewan Human Rights (SHR) Commission over a Christian prayer by a city councillor at a City-sponsored dinner last April, says he’s been told his complaint will proceed.

The New American: There appears to be a new rule in North Carolina’s high school wrestling rule book: Prayer is prohibited.

Keloland.com: City council meetings in Rapid City have started with a prayer for as long as anybody in the community can remember. But the practice is coming under attack from a group that says the prayers are unconstitutional.

Northwestern.com: That means it only took about 54 years for the Freedom From Religion Foundation to send a letter to the county complaining that the prayers before County Board meetings are “pervasively Christian.” The Madison gadfly group reviewed 11 prayers and found that nine were delivered “in Jesus name.”

9News.com: Police are investigating a mysterious case in Evergreen where paint stripper was thrown on cars parked in a church parking lot.

One News Now: Legislators in Virginia are considering a bill that would allow students to object to secular teachings that violate their religious beliefs; and a school board in South Carolina is trying to decide how it can pray before meetings.

Frank S. Page at Baptist Press: Second, there is providence. I find it very interesting that the Scouts themselves set the first Sunday in February (this weekend, Feb. 3) as Scout Sunday. This means that across our nation, thousands of churches will be focusing their attention on the Boy Scouts. I strongly urge every Southern Baptist member and congregation to direct our prayers toward the heavenly Father that the board members will reject this recommendation. Focused prayer on Sunday; board meeting on Monday. What a divine moment!

Washington Post: A Senate committee in the Virginia General Assembly on Tuesday narrowly endorsed a measure to amend the state’s Bill of Rights to require all public places and schools to accommodate prayer or other religious activity and allow students to be dismissed from assignments or presentations that conflict with their religious beliefs.

Doug Napier at Townhall: In 2010, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and Americans United for Separation of Church and State pressured the Bulverde, Texas’ City Council to change their policies regarding prayers to open public meetings. Subsequently, the city council changed its policies to more clearly welcome invocations from all faiths.

Argus Leader: The Freedom From Religion Foundation has asked the Rapid City Council to stop having a local minister lead a prayer to start council meetings, a request that has not been well-received by city leaders.

ChristianNews.net: Government officials in a Wisconsin county have voted unanimously to continue with prayers at their monthly county board meetings despite threats from a national atheist organization to file a lawsuit over the matter.

San Francisco Chronicle: The Pickens County school board is trying to decide how it can pray before meetings.

News-Press.com: Following a challenge from the Freedom From Religion Foundation to the city’s practice of holding invocations before City Council meetings, Cape Coral’s city attorney has issued an update on case law in which she indicates the city amended its routine years ago to fall within the law.

Rice Lake Online: Thirty-five people braved the bitter cold and a packed auditorium Monday night, Jan. 21 to urge the Barron County Board to continue its longstanding practice of praying at the start of its meetings.

Peshtigo Times: To view the U.S. Dept. of Education guidelines, go to: www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/religionand schools. Source: Gateways to Better Education (www.gtbe.com), P.O. Box 514, Lake Forest, CA 92609, 1-949-586-5437. Or contact: Alliance Defending Freedom, 1-800-835-5233 (www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org). Rev. Jean L. Waldron, Peshtigo

Plumas County News: Supervisor Lori Simpson said that she prays before, during and after Tuesday board meetings — and she still can, but prayer will no longer be part of the regular agenda. That’s the decision reached by the Plumas County Board of Supervisors during its Jan. 15 meeting.

Examiner.com: Kelly Shackelford, voted one of the top 25 lawyers in Texas, told a packed crowd today about his defense of the right to pray of preachers, students and veterans.

Missouri Family Policy Council: Instead of backing down, the Franklin County Commission adopted a policy formalizing the procedures for prayer before Commission meetings. The new guidelines reflected recommendations from the Alliance Defending Freedom, the nation’s leading Christian legal defense firm . . . Please be praying as well for the lawyers who are protecting our free exercise rights in this case: Brett Harvey of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and St. Louis attorney Tim Belz.

WBTA1490.com: A religious freedom lawsuit involving the town of Greece could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The group Alliance Defending Freedom has asked the high court to reconsider an appeals court ruling involving prayers used to start Greece Town Board meetings.

Freedom from Religion Foundation: It is our understanding that Sanne, Pastor of the Calvary Chapel in Olympia, gave an invocation addressed to his “Heavenly Father,” asking the “Lord, [to] bring us back into line with the timeless truths and wisdom of Your Word [the Bible].” Sanne asked his god to “lead us to a blessing, being one nation, under You.” Sanne also took the opportunity to lobby the Senate to overturn the gay marriage bill and referendum, by inviting his deity to “strengthen marriage as You’ve ordained it for our good and Your Glory.” Sanne concluded: “We openly and humbly ask these things in the name of Your Son the Living Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Democrat and Chronicle: David Cortman is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which has represented Greece at no charge since the case was filed in 2009 by two Greece residents who objected to the prayers. He blasted the appellate court decision, noting a long history in the U.S. of opening legislative sessions with prayer. “The town of Greece had a constitutional practice of allowing citizens to voluntarily deliver a prayer according to the dictates of their own conscience,” he said via email. “While the district court upheld the practice, the appeals court found it unconstitutional because the town did not invite non-Christian clergy from outside its borders.”

Chris Gacek of FRC at the Washington Times: In May 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit issued an aggressive, secular ruling in a “legislative” prayer case arising from a small town in western New York. In Town of Greece v. Galloway . . . The court applied a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that paid close attention to the content of the prayers. The court recognized the prayers “did not preach conversion, threaten damnation to nonbelievers, downgrade other faiths, or the like.” Nevertheless, the court balanced factors like the proportion of prayers offered by self-identified Christians, whether prayers “contained uniquely Christian references,” and finally whether the person offering the prayer used first-person plural pronouns (“we” or “us”).

San Francisco Chronicle: Lincoln County schools officials say they are working with the American Civil Liberties Union to address a prayer controversy at the West Lincoln Attendance Center.

One News Now: “The military unfortunately has been yielding to a radical agenda to the point of even allowing same-sex marriage at the historic West Point Chapel,” Col. Crews laments. “But yet they are unsure, it appears, that allowing prayers at official events can be continued.” David Hacker, senior legal counsel for ADF, cites the Constitution. “The First Amendment allows public officials to acknowledge our nation’s religious heritage,” he notes. “Anti-religious groups with misguided ideas about the First Amendment should not be allowed to destroy a time-honored, perfectly constitutional American custom.”

FRC: Signed by 49 Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the document makes a convincing argument that prayers before government meetings are constitutional and a matter of religious liberty for all Americans. You can read the brief in its entirety here. FRC filed the brief on behalf of the Members to support the Alliance Defending Freedom’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Town of Greece v. Galloway . . . FRC’s friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom have compiled a list of all relevant briefs, including FRC’s and that of a group of distinguished theologians.

The Blaze: “Since the Revolution, the U.S. Army has offered soldiers the opportunity to hear invocations. West Point has continued this tradition since its founding in 1802,” wrote David Hacker, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel. “Anti-religious groups with misguided ideas about the First Amendment should not be allowed to destroy a time-honored and perfectly constitutional American custom.”

ShoreNewsToday: A Township Council ad hoc committee of three has completed its study and issued a recommendation that would have council members read pre-approved prayers prior to each meeting.

South China Morning Post: Religious groups say their freedom of speech is threatened by move to protect the rights of sexual minorities.

Fox4Now: Freedom From Religion Foundation fought to prevent the Ten Commandments from being displayed at city hall. This time, it’s taking issue with what they call Christian-themed prayer at council meetings.

Oye Times: Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed’s request to Folketing Speaker Mogens Lykketoft to read Hindu invocation as a part of the “divine service” at the next opening of Folketing has ended in a denial with the response—“Parliament of Denmark must respectfully decline your kind offer”—from Speaker’s PA Marianne Treumer Ammitzboll. No reason of denial was given.

Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Wednesday on behalf of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty to the United States Military Academy at West Point after a secularist group protested invocations at various West Point events.

PRNewswire: Family Research Council’s (FRC) Ken Klukowski, J.D., has submitted an amicus brief on behalf of 49 Members of Congress supporting the Alliance Defending Freedom’s petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Town of Greece v. Galloway.

Supreme Court filings demonstrate breadth of support for historical practice of prayer before public meetings

Liberty Institute: oday, on behalf of several distinguished Christian theologians and scholars, Liberty Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the United States Supreme Court supporting a request for the High Court to hear an important religious freedom case that could determine the future of prayers before legislative bodies throughout the U.S. The theologians seek to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit’s ruling in the case Galloway v. Town of Greece, which declared the town’s legislative prayers unconstitutional because they were not religiously diverse. A copy of the brief may be found here.

U.S. News and World Report: Catholic and mainstream Protestant support for prayer in schools has sharply declined since the 1970s, while Evangelical support for the practice has remained steady according to a new study released Thursday.

WYFF4.com: An Upstate school district has gotten a complaint from a national organization that’s upset about the way the district opens their meetings. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter of complaint to the School District of Pickens County after someone complained to the organization.

Education News: An Indiana state senator has introduced a bill that would give the state’s public schools the option to require recitation of the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each school day.

CBN (includes video): As the new 113th Congress comes to Washington, many of them will start the day in prayer at a bipartisan gathering.

JDNews.com: An area church rallied outside the Onslow County Courthouse and the Onslow County School Board building this week, on a mission to put prayer back in schools.

Georgetown Times: On Sept. 18, the Georgetown County School Board — for the first time — began its meeting with a moment of silence rather than a prayer. The decision to make the change was made by chairman Jim Dumm who said he was following the advice of board attorney David Duff. Duff said because of an investigation into religious activities being conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union, the district needed to stop the practice of praying at board meetings and other district events. The interpretation of the law by the ACLU has been challenged by both the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Palmetto Family Council.

Melanie Kirkpatrick at the Wall Street Journal: Public worship is dangerous. A ‘congregation’ might mean two people on a park bench, silently sharing their faith.

Times Daily: Brett Harvey, a lawyer at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian group that often helps towns defend their practices, sees it the other way. He said liberal groups have made a coordinated attempt to bully local governments into abandoning prayers, resulting in more cases. “It’s really kind of a campaign of fear and disinformation,” he said. Harvey has talked with hundreds of towns about their policies and has been involved in about 10 court cases in the past three years. Right now, his advice differs for different parts of the country because, he said, the law is in flux. Courts around the country don’t agree on what’s acceptable or haven’t considered the issue.

Star-Tribune.com: The Wyoming chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union fired off a letter to the Jackson mayor and Town Council about a new prayer at the summer rodeo, saying it’s illegal.

“Americans United for Separation of Church and State today asked the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to stop including prayers during official events. In a letter to Academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. David H. Huntoon and other officials, Americans United asserted that the academy’s prayer policy runs afoul of the Constitution and violates the rights of cadets.”

The Hill: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference,” the downtrodden House Speaker said at a hastily called closed-door meeting Thursday night to tell fellow House Republicans that he didn’t have to votes to pass his “Plan B” effort to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”

Politicker.com: South Carolina Congressman Tim Scott, who has reportedly been chosen to replace Jim DeMint as that state’s senator by Governor Nikki Haley, has had a heavenly helping hand during his time in Washington. A volunteer named Tim Taylor has led a  group of “prayer team warriors” who have organized on Mr. Scott’s campaign website and prayed for God to give the congressman guidance and protection.

Miami Herald: In other business, commissioners will take up a measure regarding the governing board of Jackson Health System and decide on their federal and state priorities for 2013.

In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit said that, because the town contains predominantly Christian clergy, it should invite non-Christians from other jurisdictions to invite to pray at its own town meetings and take other uncommon steps to ensure that non-Christians do not “feel like outsiders.”

Lamar W. Hankins at San Marcos Mercury: An on-line review of agendas from 30 Austin-area communities reveals that almost half of area city councils use their elected positions to promote religion. Of those 30 towns and cities, 14 begin their meetings with invocations (usually prayers) according to their agendas. While nearly 47% of area municipalities promote this religious practice, the rest do not. Austin is the largest city in the area to do so.

Religion Clause Blog: In a Huffington Post essay on Monday, West Point cadet Blake Page announced that he is resigning from West Point 5 months short of graduation in protest of the school’s promotion of religion . . .

Religion Clause Blog: In Florida yesterday, the Miami-Dade County Commission voted 8-3 to re-institute prayer before the opening of the Commission’s formal meetings.

San Francisco Chronicle: A state attorney tells the Wisconsin Supreme Court a couple caused their daughter’s death when they prayed over while she slowly died of diabetes.

CNSNews: In what one Republican calls an “unprecedented” move, an atheist group is advising all newcomers to the U.S. House of Representatives to stay away from the Congressional Prayer Caucus.

Seattle Post Intelligencer: Two men seeking to stop public prayer before Hamilton County Commission meetings have filed an appeal of a federal judge’s refusal to issue a temporary injunction.

San Francisco Chronicle (AP): Brett Harvey, a lawyer at the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian group that often helps towns defend their practices, sees it the other way. He says liberal groups have made a coordinated attempt to bully local governments into abandoning prayers, resulting in more cases. “It’s really kind of a campaign of fear and disinformation,” Harvey said. Harvey has talked with hundreds of towns about their policies and been involved in about 10 court cases in the past three years. Right now, his advice differs for different parts of the country because the law is in flux.

Lancaster Online: Prayers were said at Monday’s Eastern Lancaster County school board meeting, the first meeting with a public comment period since the district stopped opening its meetings with prayer.

WDBJ7.com: Roanoke County lawyer Paul Mahoney said he put in a lot of work to draft a policy that didn’t discriminate or set out to cause any religious divides. Mahoney got help drafting the 12-page resolution from the Liberty Council and the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Religion Clause Blog: As previously reported, last March Florida’s legislature, at the urging of school prayer proponents, passed a new law authorizing school districts to adopt policies permitting inspirational messages to be composed and delivered by students at student assemblies.

Star Telegram: The district says the students are speaking under a state law that requires school districts to establish a “limited public forum,” giving students the right to speak publicly before all school events. Juniors and seniors interested in speaking are selected at random, Birdville schools spokesman Mark Thomas said.

Christian Institute: Highland Council has removed prayer from its formal meeting agenda after secularists threatened legal action.

LA Times: More than 20,000 Muslims gathered at the baseball stadium in a historic event organized by leaders of three mosques – the Islamic Center of Irvine, the Islamic Institute of Orange County in Anaheim and the Islamic Society of Orange County in Garden Grove. The three mosques are members of the Islamic Shura Council.

The Church Report: Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Friday to a Minneapolis-area senior living complex that banned a widow from praying, reading her Bible, and discussing her faith in private conversations with other residents in the commons area. The complex wrongly claims that it cannot allow the senior or any other resident to engage in private religious expression because it accepts government funds.

WATE.com: The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State posted a video to YouTube showing what it says is a local pastor praying before a recent Lenor City School board meeting.

Church Report: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said Wednesday he will defend high school cheerleaders who want to use Bible verses on banners at football games . . . “This is student-led expression, and that’s perfectly constitutional,” Abbott said. “We will not allow atheist groups from outside the state of Texas to come into the state to use menacing and misleading and intimidating tactics to try to bully schools to bow down to the alter of secular beliefs.”

The Mississippi Press: The American Civil Liberties Union demanded Wednesday that a south Mississippi school stop holding prayers and promoting religious activities at games and other events.

Carolina Live (includes video): Tuesday evening Georgetown County School Board held a meeting with a full agenda. One thing that wasn’t on there though, was a prayer. After ACLU sent a Freedom of Information Act request to all South Carolina school districts asking about prayer in their schools, in response, Georgetown County pulled prayer from their meetings.

Religion Clause Blog: In Wood County, Texas yesterday, a state trial court dismissed a lawsuit that had been brought challenging the County Commissioners’ routine opening of their sessions with prayer and seeking removal of the “In God We Trust” motto prominently displayed in the county commissioners’ meeting room.

PR Newswire: Today, Liberty Institute and its local counsel Bryan Hughes on behalf of the Wood County Commissioner’s Court applauds the ruling of a state district judge who granted a summary judgment, dismissing the lawsuit against the County for opening its sessions in prayer and for displaying in its courtroom America’s national motto “In God We Trust.” The ruling was made during a summary judgment hearing at the Wood County Courthouse in Quitman, Texas.

Rev. Mark H. Creech at Christian Post: Since the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Joyner v. Forsyth County that prayers offered in Jesus’ name are unconstitutional and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, some 25 to 30 government bodies across North Carolina have been in the cross hairs of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Humanist Association. They demand that any sectarian prayers cease and desist.
The ruling essentially turned the First Amendment on its head.

WMBFNews.com: The prayer approved Tuesday is designed to include people of all faiths, and reads: Almighty God, Creator and sustainer of all that is or will ever be, accept our profound gratitude for this day, and all of its blessings of life and freedom. We remember those who make our freedom possible. It is because of their sacrifice that our community can practice our shared and enduring values of varied expressions of faith, civic duty and respect for all. We gather today to render our public service in a proper manner, and perform our civic duties in good order. Therefore, we solemnly invoke Divine wisdom and guidance for this Council in this day’s meeting. Amen.

Herald-Mail.com: After prayerfully opening its meetings for decades, the Tuscarora School Board is considering whether “thy will be done” might need to fall to a court’s will. At issue is whether a longtime board practice of praying in unison aloud in meetings can continue in light of Doe vs. Indian River School District, a 2011 ruling by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling found that prayer at school district meetings violates First Amendment rights.

WDTV.com: “Christian students have the right to peacefully express their faith at school. They do not shed their constitutional freedoms at the schoolhouse gate or in the stadium parking lot,” said Jeremy Dys, president and general counsel of the FPCWV. “Misinformed public school officials should not cater to pressure from activists who demand that religious students be silenced; rather, they should understand that the Constitution permits students to pray—and pray publicly—before football games.” . . . “Our government and courts have already spoken: students have a constitutionally protected right to participate in peaceful, public expressions of prayer and worship. Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Policy Council of West Virginia stand with students across West Virginia as they exercise their religious liberty,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Matt Sharp.