Indiana appealing federal prayer ban [View All]

The state is appealing a federal court ruling barring sectarian prayer, including any invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, in the Indiana House of Representatives.

House Speaker Brian Bosma vowed this morning to fight “by all legal means” necessary the Nov. 30 ruling by U.S. District Judge David Hamilton. “We will find a way to have prayer within the order in one fashion or another,” he said.

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In his ruling on a lawsuit brought by the Indiana Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four citizens, Hamilton did not ban prayers in the Houses, but ordered that any person chosen to give the invocation must be instructed not to advance any one faith or use the opportunity to convert listeners. He based his ruling, he said, on a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision setting boundaries on legislative prayer.

Hamilton said while people are free to pray as they wish in their places of worship, “they do not have a First Amendment right, however, to use an official platform like the Speaker’s podium ... to express their own religious faiths.”


http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051214/NEWS01/51214030