Government prayer loss for religion

Charles C. Haynes
Published: August 1, 2008

Hashmel Turner of Fredericksburg wears two hats: City Council member and part-time pastor of the First Baptist Church of Love.

Not surprisingly, the Rev. Turner wants to pray in the name of Jesus Christ —including when it’s his turn to offer the opening prayer at council sessions.

But on July 23, Turner lost the latest round in his battle to invoke Jesus when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Fredericksburg City Council’s policy requiring that prayers at meetings be nondenominational.

In an opinion written by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (asked to take part in the case as a visiting judge), the court ruled that the prayers at issue are “government speech” and therefore the prayer policy does not violate Turner’s free speech or free exercise of religion.

Welcome to the confusing, contradictory and downright silly world of government prayers.

Like many other communities, Fredericksburg is divided about the practice of invocations at council meetings. The current dispute began in 2005 when the council changed its policy of allowing sectarian prayers to avoid a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The new policy, in turn, provoked a lawsuit from Councilman Turner. When it comes to state prayers, government officials are often sued if they do and sued if they don’t.

The Fredericksburg prayer dilemma traces back to Marsh v. Chambers, a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of legislative prayers — so long as such prayers don’t advance a particular religion. In Marsh, the high court wants to have it both ways: Keep the long-standing tradition of opening legislative sessions with prayer (dating to the nation’s founding) but at the same time prohibit government prayers that proselytize or endorse one faith over another.

State religion, in other words, is constitutional as long as it doesn’t mean anything religious. Why anyone of faith supports this arrangement is beyond me. Perhaps they believe that empty symbolism is better than none at all.

A better solution is to liberate religion to be authentic by taking the government out of the picture. A good example is how most public schools have moved from school-sponsored to community-sponsored baccalaureate services. This frees the community to have real sermons and real prayers rather than the lowest-common-denominator religious services.

If we must have an invocation at government functions, then let’s do it in silence. That way the Rev. Turners in the room can pray freely in the name of Jesus — and everyone else can pray (or not) according to the dictates of conscience.

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C. E-mail: .