Atheist activists are suing Congress for the right to give an opening prayer they don’t even believe in? Here’s the story from the Blaze:

Atheist activists are suing Congress, with the Freedom From Religion Foundation filing a lawsuit on Thursday over the claim that one of the secular group’s co-presidents was banned from giving an opening invocation in the U.S. House, the Associated Press reported.

The claim at the center of the legal dispute is that Dan Barker, one of the leaders  of the Wisconsin-based organization, is that House Chaplain Patrick Conroy denied his application to deliver an opening prayer — something that has led Barker to take action.  …

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, alleges that Barker’s constitution rights were violated and that the purported denial also ran afoul of the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

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Response: Here’s a question- does the Constitution really give everybody in America the right to deliver a prayer before Congress? Just how would everyone who wanted that honor ever be accommodated?  Obviously there has to be some type of procedure for choosing and qualifying all of the applicants.

Currently only ordained clergy are approved by the House chaplain for the honor of giving an invocation before Congress. Note also that Congress has always been allowed to set its own rules. So should it be forced by a federal judge to violate or change its own procedure? Especially to accommodate someone to give a ‘prayer’ who doesn’t even believe in prayer?

Obviously the real intent is to eliminate prayer before Congress altogether. Since prayers were given during the Constitutional Convention that actually wrote the document in the first place, it is unlikely that any of the participating founders ever expected the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that they crafted to be set on its ear and actually be used to restrict the freedom of religion and public prayer.              *Top