Court Must Reject Suit Challenging Inaugural Prayer

We have filed an important brief upholding a long-standing tradition at presidential inaugurations.  We submitted an amicus brief to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia supporting the use of the phrase, So help me God when the oath of office is administered to the President by the Chief Justice, as well as the inclusion of prayers at the inauguration ceremony itself.   Our friend-of-the-court brief urges the court to reject the lawsuit filed by Michael Newdow, who has repeatedly challenged public references to God.

 

The fact is this latest lawsuit is once again a flawed attempt to purge all religious references and observances from American public life.  This country clearly 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.

 

You can read our brief here.  We contend that Newdows suit must not be permitted to move forward and assert that [t]his 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.

 

Our 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: 

 

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.

 

In our brief, we mention that Newdow has twice lost claims challenging inaugural prayer in the past and argue that this suit should be rejected.   We urge the court to deny the motion for a preliminary injunction and to enter a judgment for the Defendants. 

 

We will keep you posted on developments as this unfolds.