Bill Ruthhart, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled ACLU asks review of legislative prayers. The initial appeal of the legislative prayer case was heard by a 3 panel judge of the 7th Circuit who decided that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the practice of sectarian prayer as official business of the Indiana House of Representatives. They did not reach the question of whether such sectarian prayer was constitutionally permissible or not.
I think that’s probably a good idea. In fact, the standing decision could have a greater long term impact on citizens attempting to challenge pernicious practices of their government than the particulars of this prayer dispute.
On PBS , there was a documentary recently about the ID/creationism(school board) vs science trial in Dover Pa.The ACLU defended science and thoroughly documented what science is and isnt.I had no idea that science was so much under attack as being ‘anti-religious’,but more people than I are naive on this issue I would assume.But I think catholicism has come to an understanding with science. Reporters attending the trial were amazed they learned so much about Evolution in court testimony that they hadn’t been taught in school.Evidently since the 20’s public schools have been reluctant to teach Evolution because it would upset so many of the citizens in certain parts of the country,and text books being what they are, have to serve broad areas of the country to be profitable,so avoid any controversy.So let’s hear it for the ACLU! Hopefully the review of legislative prayer reported above will be well-covered in this blog and by the media and we gain new insights into how and why prayer is used in our state legislature(s).I personally was amazed at the secret agendas uncovered by the ACLU in the Dover,PA trial. We need an examination of the nature of prayer in our legislature.It isn’t as benign as many of us have believed and may indeed be part of a goal of creationism replacing science in our public schools.Divine Intervention is simply not any part of scientific method.What our lawmakers are doing is part of the whole picture of the role of religion in our public institutions,so let’s see what the ACLU can bring to the surface.
Lou, a blog that is really good at keeping up with the anti-science, anti-evolution movements is Ed Brayton’s “Dispatches from the Culture Wars.”