LAW IN COURTS
Recently, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided 2-1 on Sept. 29 that a Christian minister-turned-judge can continue opening his court with a prayer from a revolving group of chaplains. Wayne Mack, a Texas Justice of the Peace, made a campaign promise to incorporate prayer in his court based on his view that God wants the program in place “for His larger purpose,” according to a lower court decision that initially found the practice unconstitutional.
The 5th Circuit’s opinion was largely unthinkable before the Supreme Court’s current make up. In fact, the ruling is a realization of a hypothetical the justices offered in a 2014 case as an example of government entanglement with religion that clearly crosses a constitutional line. In that opinion, conservative Justice Samuel Alito described the example of a litigant asked by a judge to rise for a Christian prayer as “highly imaginative” – and agreed such a practice would violate the constitution.
Allyson Ho, a Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher attorney who represented Mack, told the Court that remaining in his courtroom during the opening prayer is “entirely voluntary,” and he includes signs and instructions informing people they can leave. Mack was also backed in the case by the attorneys general of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and by First Liberty Institute, a religious legal group that worked on several recent lawsuits that look to expanded religious rights.
The 5th Circuit relied mainly on new Supreme Court precedent from two decisions issued in June that split 6-3 along partisan lines. One held that a Christian football coach at a public high school has a constitutional right to lead kids in prayer after games, and another established a strong constitutional right to carry handguns in public.
The previous test in cases about religious practice came largely from a 1971 ruling, Lemon v. Kurtzman. It required considering whether a challenged government action had a secular purpose; whether its effect advanced or inhibited religion; and whether the action could be considered an endorsement of religion. But now, the court’s conservative majority has replaced those purpose-and-effect analyses, directing judges to decide the scope of a number of constitutional rights by looking to “historical practices and understandings.”
The Fifth Circuit’s decision is an example of how important courts, specifically the Supreme Court is to the fiber of our American society. Hopefully, this recent precedent can support further expansion of religion in public life, and we may see the court hand down similar opinions that will reaffirm what this Country was founded upon as “One Nation Under God.”
We lose our focus on the fact that our Declaration of Independence states that the American Colony will move to be separate under the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” Further it aligns our beliefs as a nation with the famous line that “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This line is followed by the less well known: “”to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.”
To look up rectitude will give you the definition of:
rec·ti·tude
/ˈrektəˌt(y)o͞od/
noun
FORMAL
morally correct behavior or thinking; righteousness.
“Maddie is a model of rectitude”
Many will disagree with me, but during this time of year when we gather around a table and thank God for giving us the gift of our great Country, it is only right that we remember why we have such a great Country. That is simply because our Country was founded under the law of “Nature’s God”. That our “Creator” gave us unalienable rights. That we are judged by our “Supreme Judge of the World.” Lets not forget Him in the home, the community, or in the Courtroom after our day of Thanksgiving has passed.
