ACLJ Asks Federal Court to Reject Atheist Lawsuit Challenging Inaugural Prayer

(Washington, DC) The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), focusing on constitutional law, has submitted an amicus brief to a federal court supporting the long-standing tradition of using the phrase, So help me God when the oath of office is administered to the President by the Chief Justice and the inclusion of prayers at the inauguration ceremony itself.   The ACLJ friend-of-the-court brief was submitted to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Tuesday urging the court to reject the lawsuit filed by Michael Newdow.

This is once again a flawed attempt to purge all religious references and observances from American public life, said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ.  The fact is that this country has a long history of invoking God at inaugural events.  Such references are not only appropriate but constitutional as well.  This legal challenge is clearly misplaced and were hopeful it will be rejected by the court.

In its brief, the ACLJ contends that Newdows suit must not be permitted to move forward.

This personal crusade serves no purpose other than to waste judicial resources at a time in our Nations history when those resources are needed in cases involving real threats to American liberties, the brief asserts.

The ACLJ brief also notes that Newdows targeting of religious expression in the federal government is particularly ill-considered given the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983). 

The brief recognizes that references to God at inaugurations date back to the very origins of this country.

According to the brief:  In his first inaugural address, President Washington proclaimed that no people can be bound to knowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States, because every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.  Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States, S. Doc. No. 10, 101st Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1989).  Thus, the Inauguration of the man who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, was blessed with an invocation of Divine Aid by the very Chief Executive.  Every subsequent Inaugural has likewise afforded the Chief Executive the opportunity to expressly invoke Divine Aid, or to acknowledge the working of the Divine Hands in the enterprise that is this great Nation.

You can read the ACLJ brief here.

The ACLJ notes that Newdow has twice lost claims challenging inaugural prayer in the past and argues that this suit should be rejected.   The ACLJ urges the court to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction and to enter a judgment for the Defendants.

Led by Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow, the American Center for Law and Justice focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington, D.C.