Federal Appeals court to hear Indiana House prayer case

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana House leaders will seek private donations in their efforts to overturn a federal judge's ruling restricting opening prayers in the body's Statehouse chambers, House Speaker Brian Bosma said Tuesday.\nThe money would help defray costs of paying a private law firm tax dollars to defend a case set to be heard by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago Thursday. Bosma also said that in a rare instance, the U.S. Department of Justice is weighing in on a legislative prayer case and will argue on the side of the speaker.\n"It is my understanding that they and members of Congress are quite concerned about the impact of this case on the 225-year practice of free prayer in Congress," said Bosma, R-Indianapolis. He said he has heard from hundreds of state and local officials from Indiana and other states who have encouraged a strong defense of the prayers.\nBosma wants a three-member panel of the appeals court to reverse a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Hamilton that said the House could not formally open with prayers that endorse any \nparticular religion.\nHamilton ruled in November that invocations offered in the state House could not mention Jesus Christ or use Christian terms such as savior because they amount to state endorsement of a religion.\nA panel of the 7th Circuit voted 2-1 last spring to deny Bosma's request to temporarily lift the ban while the case was appealed. The appeals court said the case did deserve review because it involved internal proceedings of a legislative body and raised important federalism concerns.\nBosma has said that an overwhelming majority of House members and the public believed Hamilton was overreaching and interfering with the internal practices of a co-equal branch of \ngovernment.\nThe American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenged the prayer practices on behalf of four Christians who said the tradition of usually Christian prayers offended them. Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana's legal director, has said the prayers violate a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling permitting only nonsectarian prayer before a \nlegislative session.\nBosma said Tuesday that there is strong disagreement among legal scholars about the interpretation of that ruling. The House policy encouraged prayers to be ecumenical, but Bosma said he refused to tell clergy or lay people what they could say in prayers at the podium.\n"I think that's the fundamental question here: Who decides how an individual prays on the floor of the House — a federal court judge or our 189-year tradition of praying in accordance with one's conscience and heart?" \nBosma said.\nHe said clergy of non-Christian faiths also had delivered opening prayers in the past. However, of 53 such prayers during the 2005 session, 41 were given by clergy identified with Christian churches and at least 29 mentioned Jesus Christ.\nAn attorney from the Washington-based law firm of Winston & Strawn LLP will argue on behalf of Bosma's appeal. The Indiana attorney general's office represented the House before the district court and remains part of the defense team, but the private firm specializes in First Amendment cases before appeals courts, Bosma said.\nThe firm has been paid at least $67,000 in tax money from the Indiana House budget so far, Bosma said. But he said House staff was creating a way for people to make private donations for a case he predicted ultimately would be decided by the U.S. \nSupreme Court.\nSince Hamilton's ruling, several House members have gathered at the back of the House chamber and prayed — often mentioning Christ. Falk said he had no problem with that, since it was done privately before official legislative business began. Nor did he have a problem with nonsectarian prayers from the podium, he said.\nFalk said every appellate case faced with the question of legislative prayers mentioning Jesus have been found to be unconstitutional.\n"It comes down to the question of does it make sense for our House of Representatives to be excluding people," he said. "Prayers have to be nonsectarian and have to \nbe inclusive."\nBosma said House members should not have to meet court dictates by "having prayer kind of football-huddle style" in the back of the chamber before legislative business began.