Actually I totally missed where you were going with the Rip Van Winkle analogy.

I had to sit back a minute and run through all the posts again to see where you were coming from. In order to get out from under the cloud of Intellectual Dishonesty that hangs over me perhaps I should explain what I meant.

When you had stated that what Bikerdad had said was largely irrelevent I did misunderstand what you were referring to. I was pretty sure you weren't calling the amendments irrelevent however I didn't see much else which made much sense, and it seems like some others had been saying something like that anyway. When I intentionally mistunderstood you I put forth what it looked like you could be saying but that I was fairly sure you weren't. In this case my intentional misunderstanding was more of exageration for effect, the effect I was looking for to have you clarify what you did mean. I should have been more clear as to why I was saying that and I apologize for that. Maybe neither of us was a clear as we could have been.

Let me throw out some things here which explain how I see the discussion as going and you can feel free to correct me if I get it wrong

1. We both agree that the Founding Fathers values regarding many issues have no bearing on what should be changed about the Constitution in regards to issues such as religion, morality, etc.

2. We seem to be disagreeing on how those changes should be made.

3. We agree that the courts have had many rulings about various issues Constitutionality which are now established law.

At this point is where it appear that we diverge. I don't believe that many of the changes that have come about because of these rulings are Constitutional. I am not arguing whether the laws are right, or just, or moral or anything. They simply aren't Constitutional. When a Judge prohibits a person from mentioning their diety in a prayer they are showing preference to all the other religions that worship a different diety.

The judge has no Constitutional right to ban religion this way. Maybe he could say to the Indiana Legislature that they must have a more representative mix of religions give prayers but that would be about it. In this he is dicatating how a person can follow their religion.

Next, to jump back to a previous post. I said that I felt that the judiciary has usurped the authority of the legislature in creating law instead of just interpretting it and that you couldn't change the Constitution just by declaring that it was wrong. You didn't seem to contradict me, you simply said:



I would like to have you clarify your position on this. Do you feel that the courts have the authority to make law like they have been? If so is it the Constitutional authority to do so or is it something that they have just taken upon themselfs, or been ceded by the legislative branch unConstitutionally?

I have always wanted the courts to come out someday and present a ruling along the lines of "You know what? The Constitution doesn't say anything about it. Go ask Congress to make a law about it" Perhaps they already have and I just didn't notice in the 50 page rulings they blanket everything behind. Of couse brevity leaves a lot open for misinterpretation, as I have already proven.

The problem is that when an elected official is in a state assembly and the assembly is in session, they are no longer just private citizens, they are representatives of the citizens of their respective districts and should put the interests of their constitutents above their own predilections. You have the right to exercise your religion on your own time and property, but not on state property when you are representing the members of your district who agree with you, and those that don't have your religious doctinre.



Keep in mind that this is the second judge who has agreed that this opening exercise of the state assembly was unconstitutional. The district judge isn't a part of the circuit that is the most widely overturned in the nation. He agreed with the lower judge who made the decision. The decision was upheld based on previous rulings, of which plenty exist. Human secularism has nothing to do with this, especially as two methodist ministers, a former lobbyist for a Quaker group, and two Roman Catholics felt that this sectarian prayer was unnecessary and offensive.

Where is this written? The very reason for having a republic government is to rely on the elected to be of a statesman mind, doing that is best for the people, not a leaf in the wind.

Again, where is this written. Being a politican has many hats, but being a slave to the position is not one. An elected member of any government may practice his faith per the free exercise clause, they just cannot pass any law to favor any religion in it’s establishing, but can if it favors all religion in establishing. This is not a licensed position though and if the moral attribute of the elected member wishes, he may practice his moral attitude in providing for law to guide this nation's civility.

Why would the attitude of the USSC influence the lower courts? That is obvious, especially for magistrates, as their job is at will of the appointment judge of a district. The term stare decisis has great influence over lower courts. If the USSC is an attitude that holds the establishment clause so broad of a sweeping denial of free exercise of religion, it is the lower courts that are in part responsible to enforce such rulings of judicial policy.

When a state assembly member convenes the session and/or gives the opening prayer, they are acting in their official capacity. How are they not?



Where is it written?, that would be part of the establishment clause where in this instance, it was upheld twice. First by the court that had original jurisdiction, then a second time by the circuit court. It's one thing for the member to talk about his faith, it's another to say a narrow, sectarian prayer in front of a *captive* audience.

How is this praying in any way in respect to establishing religion? It is a free exercsie.


Shall it then be said that those who are in a captive position have the right to not hear anything which may be offensive? Is not the freedom of speech the right of a representive protecting from the government? May not any representative also provide for a prayer, or not listen? Shall we make up constitutional laws because it seems good? Where is the democratic principle in this? And if such a tool is allowed, what is to prevent such a tool from creating despotism?

I’m not sure you are going to like my clarification. As has been pointed out as far back as I can remember, the courts are the least powerful branch. The Congress controls the purse strings and the president the military. What do the courts control?

To directly answer your question, I would have to buy into the premise that the courts have, in fact, been “make[ing] law.” I reject this premise. The only time I ever heard all the buzz about “textuslism” or “originalism” or “strict construction” is when a “conservative” Republican administration is in office. I first heard this from the mouth of Richard Nixon. With the “weight” of Justice Scalia behind the idea, the current White House has taken it to a new “high” or maybe that should be a new “low.” After all, if Karl Rove, or whoever, can get the public thinking about those dangerous justices, then it partially covers the problems of Tom Delay, possibly Rove himself, the CIA leak case, illegal wiretaps and “you’re doing a heck of a job Brownie.”

My favorite Supreme Court Justice was William O. Douglas. Douglas was one of the prime movers in defining the right to privacy, something some conservatives argue doesn’t exist in the Constitution of the United States. I think it is unfortunate, that in recent years, the right to privacy has become so intertwined with the abortion issue, that the two may never be untangled.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas

Douglas enraged conservatives to the point that Republican Gerald Ford, then House Minority Leader, called for the impeachment of Douglas.



http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Gerard0507.htm

While Democrats might vote not to confirm people like Bork, Carswell and Haynesworth (or even Roberts and Alito) or on occasion filibuster an appointee, I have heard of no credible attempt to impeach Thomas or Scalia. As much as I dislike the rulings of these two men, I do not favor politically motivated impeachments.



I taught in the public schools for 34 years. According to school board policy campaigning for political candidates or teaching one’s own religious convictions to students was illegal. I have no problem with these two policies.

Religion when practiced by the majority in such situations can produce despotism itself. I can give you a couple of examples. Fort Worth is home to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, a haven for conservative Southern Baptists. Some years ago one of our elementary schools employed one of the wives of a seminary student. One day when her charges were not behaving to her expectations, the teacher accused the kids of being “devil possessed.” She was disciplined, short of termination, moved to another school and advised not to repeat the offense.

I worked a couple of summers for a principal that had a prayer meeting every Tuesday morning for the teachers in her regular school. From some of my friends in that school, I learned that she put considerable pressure on her staff members to attend these meetings.

Likewise, I doubt practicing religion in the work place is protected in private industry. I support the right of people to practice religion on their own time, either in private or in public, be it Christianity, Wiccan or whatever.

When people are on someone else’s watch, whether government or private, they should hush the babbling about Jesus and do their jobs.

Syfir and George, I am having outpatient surgery Wednesday, so I might not be able to drop everything and get back with you immediately.

Let's hope and pray all goes well and you are back from the surgery fast.

I understand your logic on reigious boundries, but I am not in agreement that law can be altered by the USSC by their personal moral or political bias. Thier job is to uphold the law as created. Any other method is not democratic.

Hey, I don't have to like it. I did ask for it though.



I don't deny that the current administration and some of the past ones too have attacked the courts trying to shift attention from themselves. I think that all the branches have problems now. I am not that happy with the way that the Executive Branch is going and I really don't like the way the Legislative branch seem to have become an arm of Party politics rather than representing their constituents. Maybe if we changed it so that each state paid its own Senators and Representatives and let the state legislatures set their pay, rather than letting them set their own pay it would help. Lots of problems there too such as perhaps a Republican controlled state legislature punishing a Democratic Senator by cutting their pay. In any case something needs to be done about all the branches, not just the Judicial in my opinion.



The right to privacy has never been one of my concerns and so I haven't really paid that much attention to it until recently. Mainly due to the so-called Patriot Act. When it was passed with a specific expiration date. unless renewed, I was pretty sure that the expiration date was simply a way to get it passed originally. Once the uproar over the act had died down I figured that there would be a push to get the expiration portion stripped out and to have it made permanent. Sure enough.

Personally I haven't seen an argument about the right to privacy being in the Constitution that I can accept. My personal feeling is that right to privacy groups are more closely aligned with the FF beliefs when it comes to government interference but that it was such a commonly held belief to them that they really didn't see a reason to put it in. I could be way off though. Who knows.



I really dislike partisan politics. You can't tell me that when you see a vote that is split exactly along party lines (i.e. all R voting for and all D voting against) that not one Republican feels that the issue is not right and that not one Democrat feels that that it is right. In those cases both parties are not serving their constituents interests. It's an imperfect world though. I would like to add another line to the impeachment process though that would say that any vote to start the impeachment process that falls along party lines should get thrown out. Unfortunately that would probably render the impeachment process void due again to the partisan politics. Those voting against the process are more likely to do so if the person being impeached is of their party.



In the case of religion in the public schools I agree with you. The areas that I have lived in have, for the most part, had either a majority or a significant population of Mormons. I myself am a Mormon. I do not and have not advocated for prayer or religion in public schools other than in a study situation such as historical, and cultural education. i.e. you really can't understand the situation in the Middle East without some religious study into Judaism, Islam, etc. I was talking to a friend who grew up in Utah and he mentioned that one of the problems with schools in Utah is that Utah history really is lacking in comparison to other states. Because the history of Utah is so intertwined with the history of the Mormon church, what do you teach that won't get you in trouble with someone. It appears that the result is that they have erred on the side of caution and removed a lot of the history due to it being "too religious".

On the other hand there is a practice, in areas with a high number of Mormon students that they can use one of the school periods for "release time seminary". That is, they study religion, taught by a church employee for one period a day. This is not done on school grounds and the teacher is paid by the church not by the school. While I have only seen it done for Mormons, any church is welcome to do the same. Students are not required to attend these classes either. In other areas, where the number of students didn't make it feasible to do this we met before school instead.

In any case, there are no easy answers in these cases. However my feeling is that anytime someone in authority dictates the religious issue (be it prayer etc) then it is wrong. This would apply to public schools where the kids have no choice, bosses pressuring their employees, etc. I don't feel that this applies to the case in point of a legislative session opening and closing with prayer as long as it is open to all to participate.

In the case of a prayer being too sectarian, well, if you don't like the prayer, don't invite the person back. My major issue with this comes with the Judge regulating what can and can't be said in the prayer. I would have had no problem with the judge saying "look, Indiana is only 82% Christian according to your census, yet 95% of the prayers offered are Christian. You need to invite a more representative sample" I would have had a smaller problem with him saying that prayer was banned altogether. I don't think it right, but not quite as big a deal as him saying, prayer is okay as long as you do it the way I think it should be done.

I don't see a problem with prayer before a government meeting as long as it is not being done to preach. And, as I stated before, if the person who was asked to give the prayer abuses that invitation, don't invite them back.



Good luck with this. I wish you the best. Hope to see you back soon!

If it was on his own time and dime, then yes, that would be "expression." It's "establishing" of religion since he's acting in capacity as an elected official of the state, on state territory, and most importantly-on the state taxpayer dime. By turning the session into a rollicking hymn for Jesus, it is sending the message: "We believe XXXXX to be the truth, all others are marginalized." That is why a Quaker, two Methodists, and other people have complained about this. Individual worship styles should be left to churches, not the state assembly.



There is a difference between hearing something you don't like in public, and hearing something you don't like in the public's state house. The former, you have a choice to leave. The latter, pressures others to participate who may not normally participate since there is active *peer pressure* in such a captive audience setting. Not only that, but it leaves you with the impression that other people's values are what the state endorses.



This prayer would've been just fine if the person giving it had not made it so narrow. The representatives could've had the choice that you mentioned, but no, he had to have it his way. By making it so narrow to his own dictates and beliefs, how does that not send a de facto message that: "The state of Indiana endorses the ____________church."?

For Christs Sake! Cant we just leave religion at home? May I ask WHY some Christians need to slather their God all over us like the Blob? You dont see the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists doing it. What is the special 'thing' that happens to Christians that they cannot just let others live their life as they see fit and be in public without being accosted?

Yes, yes, yes, we can have Christian prayers at the beginning of every event, open legislature, sports, you name it, then follows, a hindu prayer, a jewish prayer, a muslim prayer, a freaking mesopoteric chant, a goat slaying, and then as a nation we are paying our legislative branch to pray all day, it will take 45 minutes in front of every event to say all the prayers, then we can get on with life.

Or perhaps we just cut through the crap and keep religion in home , hearth and community and out of government and state events, just for simplicities sake.

By the WAY, when one mentions Christ in Prayers in the legislature, it gives prevalence to Christians, above every Jew, Native American, Buddhist, Muslim, Athiest and Agnostic, whom by blood or belief is not inclined to believe in Christ as the savior. Now being that Christ was also Jew and born in the Middle East, ( not in Europe or the U.S.), perhaps it would be just MINIMALLY respectful to consider that ALL people do not share ones singular spiritual opinions and therefore we should respect fractures in the relationship between religions, history, race and faith, and BACK OFF!
Enough to STOP trying to propose one belief over another, but who knows, so ultimately religion and government should stay separated, a unique idea with a future.
That would be smart and honorable.

Let's see. If you are referring to the prayer that triggered the lawsuit it was given by some one who is not a legislator so he wasn't "acting in capacity as an elected official of the state" He wasn't paid for it so it wasn't on the state taxpayer dime. You could argue that those that listened to it were, but I seriously doubt that Indiana pays its legislators by the hour so that wouldn't matter.



I guess you could interpret this in the way you have if you really stretch it. You would have a point if every session was opened with a "a rollicking hymn for Jesus." Since they did invite other religions to open other sessions, and since not every one of the Christians were as "rollicking" I don't think you can claim that "all others are marginalized." To be honest I think they need to invite a few other non-Christians to pray if they are going to have a prayer but there isn't a need to give equal time, 50/50. Split it along your census numbers if you want to be fair.



Correct me if I am wrong but "the public's state house" is still public. It is not a private residence. It is not private land. It is public. I have just as much right as you do to be there and express my views. You are saying that your peer pressure to force me not to express myself trumps my right to free expression? In a public place??? If you are a legislator and prayer offends you so much, show up after the prayer is over. No one has made a law that you have to listen to the prayer.



I agree with this, partially. The person who gave the prayer crossed the line so to speak. He was invited to give a prayer and he abused that invitation in my view. However you can't punish everyone because of the actions of one. You didn't like the prayer? Don't invite him back. Let the word get out that you don't accept preaching through "prayer" and anyone who can't accept that is welcome to turn down any invitation. That goes for Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc. Anyone who abuses that doesn't get invited back. Period.



To your first question - No we can't leave religion at home. Our beliefs are what makes us who we are, whether we believe in God or whether we believe in something else.



Why can't Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie go out in public with out being accosted by photographers? Why can't your congressman go out in public without being accosted by the press? Why can't I go out in public without being accosted by survey takers, samples displayers, people asking for money, etc. Because it is public. I don't think that "accosting" anyone is a good way to share your beliefs. But if you don't like being accosted, by anyone, you had better stay home because it's not going to stop.

Now, before you jump all over me for this, no I am not endorsing prayers of the type that triggered the lawsuit. I am simply saying that you are going to see things in public that you do not agree with. The state house is a public building. As long as no laws are created forcing you to participate, and as long as the prayers are kept simple and non-judgemental/preachy/etc. what harm is there?



Who says we have to have 45 minutes of prayers? A simple prayer, given by people on a rotating basis of the various religions only needs to take a couple of minutes.



So what you are saying is that you can be intolerant of me but I can't be intolerant of you? Yes that is what you are saying. You can twist it around to claim that you are trying to be understanding of everyone but you still mean that my beliefs are less important than yours.

I have not heard any of the legislators in this case saying that "only Christians are allowed" I have seen numbers that indicate that that is not the case.

From the Washington Post article referenced in the original post:



Assuming that all 9 of the lawmaker delivered prayers could be considered "Christian" prayers that means that 96.2% were Christian, 1.8% were Muslim, and 1.8% where Jewish. Is that where it should be? Well the census shows Indiana to be 82% Christian so I would say that they would need to ask others more often. I don't want to be intolerant of others. Let everyone have there say, in an orderly fashion, but don't ban me just because I believe what and how I believe.

The Constitution says "We the People" not "We the robots" or "We the non-believers" or even "We the athiests, Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc" If you are going to have people in government you are going to have to take their beliefs as well. Not as better than yours or worse than yours but equal to yours. Allowing prayer, on a rotating basis, and with the understanding that it is not a preaching tool, is "smart and honorable." If you want to have a day where there isn't a prayer to conform to your beliefs then why not?

If it was by a minister, then that is even worse. He doesn't represent the beliefs of all citizens of the state and people of other beliefs are not required to wait a day or so for their minister or religious leader to open the service. De facto establishment of religion is wrong.



All you have to do is keep the prayer vague-it's not that hard.



You have the right to voice your opinion, you don't have the right to have your own theological service observed and watched upon by the state in the state house.



If you read the article I posted, the legislators were very belligerent and intend to break the court order at will. With people like that, a lawsuit was necessary. The attitude of compromise is not in the air here, hence why they got their clocks cleaned in the courts.



Yes, you can state how your beliefs influence your political views and how that would be beneficial for the state. And yes, you are to park your specific religious observation and service at your porch and not expect others to observe, or have it observed, by the state house. Same goes with everyone else. Let the government worry about matters of government and allow your church service for sundays.



Apples and oranges comparison here-those people and petty pestering is not of a religious nature in the state house. You can walk out of a conversation about Brad and Angelina, it's a lot harder to be rude and walk out when some minister is giving a prayer.



There would be no harm, but the state legislators do not recognize the importance of including all citizens.

I didn't say that he did represent the beliefs of all citizens. I also didn't say that he had to. That's why you rotate. In this guys case I agreed that he shouldn't be invited back.


It can't be to vague though, otherwise it is meaningless.


Who said it was a theological service. A 1-2 minute prayer does not make a service. I am not talking about, nor endorsing the sermon/prayer that was given. Also who said it was mine? The church I am a member of is a small minority and so I doubt that I would see a prayer given by a member of my church. That doesn't mean that I can't support the rights of others to pray.


I wasn't arguing the point. I don't think they should break the court order. I do think the court order is wrong, and unconstitutional though.


So basically you are prohibiting the free exercise of my religion anywhere in public? That's what you are saying, although you probably mean keep it out of the state house. Unless you are completely ignorant about the teaching of religion, which I don't for one minute believe, I would bet you know that those who are considered "Sunday only worshippers" are not usually considered to be living their religion to the fullest.

Now, I am not trying to get into an argument about religion. You have stated that I should keep my religion out of the state house. Fine. All I am asking is for you to point out one passage in the Constitution that forbids prayer before a government meeting. If you have read my past post in answer to your discussion questions, I have not challenged the court on the issue of should the court order be followed. I haven't said the legislators are right in plotting to violate the court order. What I said is that the court had no Constitutional right to rule the way that they did. I have offered suggestions on how the issue might be resolved in a way that I feel doesn't violate the Constitution. I understand that you don't agree with prayer in the statehouse. I disagree, but I don't think I am going to change your mind on that issue. What I have asked, and what no one has seen fit to answer, except BoF, who has been out for medical leave is how do you justify your position based on the Constitution? Not the courts. The Constitution.


To play semantics on this, what you seem to be endorsing is impossible. You can't include everyone by prohibiting prayer. The religious are excluded. You can't include everyone by regulating prayer, then the athiests are excluded. However by allowing prayer and not requiring that the athiests (or whomever) attend you are meeting both sides partway.

Also I have never disagreed with you on this point. That is where my suggestions came from. However the control of the content of a pray by the courts is a worse violation than the legislature in revolt. They shouldn't be in revolt. They should obey the court order while in effect but they should also challenge it and institute more inclusive guidelines. However to say that because some people did not like the prayers then no one can pray, sounds more like a violation of the free exercise clause rather than the establishment clause. It sounds a whole lot like saying one person used a car to commit a crime therefor we are banning cars.

To go back to your questions "2.)Is the refusal to respect the judicial branch's findings a potential threat to the checks and balances system?"

I have answered this by saying that the judges actions are more of a threat to checks and balances than the legislators actions. They are just violating a court order not threatening the checks and balances. No one is going to take them seriously unless the whole legislature rebels. Let me ask you a question in return

Where in the Constitution does it give the courts the right to ban prayer before government meetings or regulate the content of said prayers?

If you look back at BoF and my posts you will see that I have no problem with changing the Constitution to reflect so-called modern values, but the courts are not the place to do it.

Yup, let us just throw the religious into the grinder and not let them out of their cubicals. Free exercise is not a freedom in public nor in representing? Can't a representative go to the floor and provide prayer every time so done, several times a day?

So if we can exercise the establishment clause to ban religion from being mentioned, maybe we can now ban any moral value attributed to religion from being law and have the USSC throw out all morals not of the secular humanist values found in the physical world as based on scientific theology. Then what is the next step? If anyone can see or hear of any religion coming from your home, you will be put to the cross?

I DO understand, Constitutionally:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

So, we may in public, pray, from here to eternity, in fact most likely filibuster in prayer alone in the State and Federal legislatures. They may and might do nothing 'other than pray' actually. We can in fact have:


Seeing that these, if registering only one minute each, (not the case), can take minimally one hour or more of legislative time, likely two or more, a tour de force of whos who, who is MORE religious, and who believes what and how, a wasting of valuable time on oneupmanship, a ridiculous form and dereliction of duty to law making, in effect useless, a process better left to the personal.
I dont care whos God is overseeing the legislature, I want results and we do not pay them to pray, we donate to our clergy to pray for us (and possibly molest our children), we pay lawmakers to make laws above and beyond any religion or religous beliefs they may aspire to personally.
This is a common sense issue.
Yes, we can pay our legislators to pray and quibble about gods all day. I certainely hope that will solve the demanding issues we have in this country, but I doubt it. I dont think it is going to fix our major predicaments, seeing as they are praying to various Gods, as in the time of Zeus and Hera, Dionysus and Aphrodite. Even the Greeks and Romans (birthplace of democracy) realized that the Gods were one thing (immortal) and lawmaking among 'mortals' was another, (virtually corrupt , greedy and power driven.)

If Christians are true to their faith:

"Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a peny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Cesars. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesars; and unto God the things that are Gods."

This is a clear advocation of separation of church and state from Jesus himself.

Interestingly, in Islam God is not exempt from daily politics, the very reason WHY democracy does not work in Islam. God superceeds all political leanings and is the very reason for fundamentalist dictatorships, driven by moralist beliefs.
Where we are going is a Christian version of Islamic fascism, complete with its closed mindedness, overt godliness and extreme violence.

What is clear, and in my mind the Founders intent, was basically to render unto the government , government business, lawmakers business, Not several hours of prayers, better left to home and clergy, but to attend to the needed business of the day.
Once again, it is ONLY Christians that are insisting on this tangent 'off duty', to lawmaking, noone else is pushing God and law, or God and government be intertwined in such fashion. It is a new extreme, a completely uneccessary extreme, an extremist position that has no bearing on government by any precedent in this USA, so far.

Who said anything about hours of prayer??? This is a strawman argument! Not one person here has advocated hours of prayer and yet it keeps being brought up as a reason not to allow prayer. If the prayer is given on a rotating basis by the various denominations there should be no problem.



So the Founding Fathers are not precedent enough for you? They offered prayers before their meetings. Who says that it is intertwining government to do this. I am not advocating that the pastors/rabbis/whoever be consulted for the legislative work to be done (unless they would be affected by the laws and then it is just courteous to do so just like any other group a specific law would affect).

I hear lots of people complaining that this violates the separation of church and state, but I can find no one who can provide any Constitution basis as to why it should be so. The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and if they had no problems with praying before a meeting then a judge can not ban it on Constitutional grounds.

If you don't like the prayers, fine. Amend the Constitution to ban them. However you can not argue that the prayers are unconstitutional or illegal when they obviously are not.

The founding fathers in 1787 constitutional convention,per notes taken, to create our constitution began their labors without opening with pray. When the process of the heart of our representative representation debate bogged down in how to divide the sovereignty between the federal and the states, Mr. Sherman offered this discourse:

Mr. President
The small progress we have made after 4 or five weeks close attendance & continual reasoning with each other-our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ays, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of Government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the Contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection.- Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

The provision of providing prayer at this point of debate was not allowed to be considered based on theories of fact dispensing what the result of this late time of establishing prayer may have on the publics conception of the convention's progress. It was noted:

Mr. HAMILTON & several others expressed their apprehensions that however proper such a resolution might have been at the beginning of the convention, it might at this late day, I. [FN14] bring on it some disagreeable animadversions. & 2. [FN15] lead the public to believe that the embarrassments and dissension within the Convention, had suggested this measure.

This paranoia was countered:

It was answered by Docr. F. Mr. SHERMAN & others, that the past omission of a duty could not justify a further omission-that the rejection of such a proposition would expose the Convention to more unpleasant animadversions than the adoption of it: and that the alarm out of doors that might be excited for the state of things within, would at least be as likely to do good as ill.

This comment seemed to quell the debate:

Mr. WILLIAMSON, observed that the true cause of the omission could not be mistaken. The Convention had no funds.

The morals of representation have an obvious value in governmental representation and may be liberally exercised, that the attitude of those who framed the constitution and of whom were a prominent part of the Bill of Rights that followed, holding the faith of the representatives as a definite right to be freely practiced in governmental function, thus not establishing a religion but providing for the free exercise therof, per the first amendment.