Chicago, IL – Today, Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief defending the 188 year tradition of opening prayer in the Indiana legislature. Last year a federal district court ordered that the prayer tradition cease, or that if it continued, it ordered the Indiana legislature to censor prayers of any sectarian content.

The District Court ordered that “if the Speaker chooses to continue any form of legislative prayer, he shall advise persons offering such prayer (a) that it must be non-sectarian, must not be used to proselytize or advance any one faith or belief or to disparage any other faith or belief, and (b) that they should refrain from using Christ’s name or title or any other denominational appeal. To comply with this order, the legislature will have to review the content of any proposed prayers and then censor out anything deemed to be “sectarian” or any phrase promoting a “belief” or “any other “denominational appeal.” This would mean that the Lord’s Prayer would be neutered so that nothing is left because even the phrase “Our Father” or “Who art in heaven” could be deemed sectarian. The practice of the legislature has never been to censor prayer or to select speakers. Rather, the speakers are recommended by individual legislators who typically are people from the district. Some include clergy while some have included sports figures. If no speaker is available for a particular day, a volunteer from the legislature opens the session with an invocation.

Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that legislative prayer predated the First Amendment and continued contemporaneous with it and thereafter. The first legislative prayer dates back to at least the Constitutional Convention when Benjamin Franklin rose up during a particularly tense time in the debates and summoned his colleagues to pray and to resolve that prayer be offered at any such future gathering. In l983 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Nebraska’s tradition of legislative prayer, finding that such prayer was deeply embedded in our history and consistent with the First Amendment. The brief points out that the district court’s opinion conflicts with four other federal courts of appeal, all of which have upheld legislative prayer.

Mathew D. Staver, President and General Counsel of Liberty Counsel, said, “Our Constitution arose in the context and as a consequence of prayer. When the Constitutional Convention fragmented to the point of impasse in 1787, Benjamin Franklin restored unity by urging his colleagues to pause for a moment of prayer. That prayer was the turning event in American history. To eliminate legislative prayer would be contrary to our history, and inconsistent with our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence which acknowledge that God endowed each person with inalienable rights. Those who authored the First Amendment were the same people who authorized legislative prayer.”