August 28, 2007
America's founding was bathed in prayer. George Washington prayed at St. Paul's Church before he attended inaugural festivities in New York City. The framers of the Constitution and the First Amendment regularly engaged in prayer at official government events, and every president but one has invoked God in their inaugural address - and that president attended Sunday worship services conducted in the newly constructed U. S. Capitol Building.
Despite this history of public invocations, the ACLU and its allies have been working for decades to prohibit public prayer in schools, the military, government-owned facilities, senior centers, county council meetings, and even private homes. Prayer is just as critical to our country as it was centuries ago, but because of the ACLU and its allies, it is increasingly in danger of being removed from the public square.
ADF is responding to this threat with a nationwide effort to protect the constitutional use of voluntary prayer at public meetings. Recent attacks on public prayer in Pennsylvania, Ohio, the Carolinas, and elsewhere demonstrate the ACLU's agenda, but with God's grace and your support, they will not succeed.
ADF has distributed informational letters to thousands of local governments, offering officials free information and the legal assistance they need to stand up to the demands of the ACLU's secular agenda. We have already assisted several local governments in drafting and defending policies that safeguard public prayer.
Last Tuesday, August 21, after the ADF litigated-victory at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the Tangipahoa Parish School Board in Louisiana voted unanimously to adopt a model prayer policy drafted by ADF attorneys - a policy that enables them to reinstitute their longstanding tradition of opening meetings with prayer.
That's a tradition that's always been perfectly legal, says ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson, who has spearheaded our efforts to protect public prayer.
"The Constitution does not ban citizens or elected officials from invoking divine guidance and blessings upon their public work," he says.
"It's a practice that is part of our nation's religious heritage, and the Constitution does not prevent public officials today from doing the same thing America's founders did." We must continue to take action, and work together to ensure that the freedom to pray remains a cornerstone of this nation. To learn more about our efforts to defend the right to hear, speak, and pray the Truth, visit
http://www.telladf.org/issues/ReligiousFreedom/Default.aspx?cid=4178.