{"id":6258,"date":"2006-01-05T13:51:53","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T18:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6258"},"modified":"2006-01-05T13:51:53","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T18:51:53","slug":"indiana-lawmakers-figure-out-how-to-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/indiana-lawmakers-figure-out-how-to-pray\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana lawmakers figure out how to pray"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Monday, I noted<\/a> an unusual church-state showdown in the Indiana legislature. Yesterday, state lawmakers managed to figure out that they could pray without violating the First Amendment and without ignoring a court order.<\/p>\n

To briefly summarize for those just joining us, the Indiana legislature has been hosting official, evangelistic prayer sessions “in Jesus’ name” to start off legislative sessions, much to the consternation of religious minorities, non-believers, and anyone who takes church-state separation seriously. A federal judge recently ruled that the practice was unconstitutional, but several lawmakers suggested that they would ignore a court order<\/a> and allow state-sponsored prayers in the legislature when members returned this week.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, there was some question as to what might happen. As it turns out, lawmakers weren’t quite as anxious<\/a> to take on a federal court order as they seemed.<\/p>\n

Republican House leaders made it clear Wednesday they don’t agree with a judge’s ban on prayers that invoke the name of Jesus Christ during their proceedings. But, led by House Speaker Brian C. Bosma, they decided to forgo the 189-year tradition of invocations — at least for now — and opted instead to have a free-spirited prayer huddle in the back of the House chamber minutes before the opening gavel.<\/p>\n

“We’re taking a stand. We’re making a statement,” Bosma said. “But within the bounds of the court order.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not exactly sure why someone would want to turn worship into some kind of political protest, but putting that aside, do you know what’s wrong with lawmakers getting together to pray before doing the people’s business? Not a thing. As Fran Quigley, executive director of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, whose lawsuit against Bosma prompted the court order, said, “They’re expressing their faith in a way that’s not given the trappings of government speech, so I think it’s constitutionally appropriate.”<\/p>\n

One of the lawmakers who participated in the prayer session said a prayer is a prayer and “God’s going to hear it the same way.” If more believers accepted this, they wouldn’t fight so hard for government to promote their prayers through official actions.<\/p>\n

As for state Rep. David Orentlicher (D), the legislature’s only Jewish member, he said lawmakers “should be paying more attention to vital issues such as health care and tax policy and less to the prayer controversy.” What a concept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Monday, I noted an unusual church-state showdown in the Indiana legislature. Yesterday, state lawmakers managed to figure out that they could pray without violating the First Amendment and without ignoring a court order. To briefly summarize for those just joining us, the Indiana legislature has been hosting official, evangelistic prayer sessions “in Jesus’ name” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}