Atheists slapped, as common sense, courage, come to court
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that a group of atheists demanding the right to deliver the invocation at the opening of legislative sessions in the Pennsylvania House are S.O.L. — simply out of luck — and they’ll have to take their secularist so-called prayers elsewhere.
Finally. A court with courage to uphold the common sense aspect of the Constitution.
Law and order can’t last in a land with people who aren’t lawful and orderly in their thinking, you see.
“The Supreme Court has long taken as [a] given that prayer presumes invoking a higher power,” wrote Judge Thomas Ambro, in the 2-1 majority decision against the petition brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
That’s because it is a “given.”
It’s only been in recent years that atheist groups like the FFRF have been emboldened to tip and tap at the “givens” of the world and flip what’s common sense for what’s contrary to logic — contrary to the point of creating chaos. That these groups only try to disguise their atheism by referring to themselves as free thinking, or humanist, or the like, only underscores the chaos they’re trying to create within America’s constitutional system — within an America that was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, rooted firmly in the idea that individual rights come from God, not government. And what’s their end goal?
To rip all evidence of God from the public square.
To usher in a country that’s completely secular.
To confuse the application of the Constitution and the interpretation of Founding Father writings to the point where America’s true history is wiped, and where the secularists can swoop in and command control of the government.
That’s what these atheists had in mind when they sued members of the House in Pennsylvania back in 2016 for the right to “pray” — and that’s pray in quotation marks — before legislative sessions, saying the theists-only policy that was in place violated the establishment clause.
“As a matter of traditional practice,” Ambro wrote, “a petition to human wisdom and the power of science does not capture the full sense of ‘prayer,’ historically understood. Because [nontheists] do not proclaim the existence of a higher power, they cannot offer religious prayer in the historical sense.”
Americans United for Separation of Church and State called the ruling “disturbing.”
One of the plaintiffs, Brian Fields, on Twitter called it “very disappointing.”
And one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs, Alex Luchenitser, characterized it as discriminatory against those who “do not believe in a god.”
But their disappointment is as feigned as their pretend titles of freethinkers.
These atheists simply wanted to use the courts to impose their angry personal wills on the people, and make a mockery of the Constitution in the process. They lost. Common sense won.
Maybe they can take their complaints now to their higher power. That would be — them.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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These invocations - which happen at every level of government (and have for centuries) - are not intended to be some kind of open mic forum for whatever is on your mind. They are an appeal to God for his intervention in the form of guidance, support, and blessing. I therefore don't see the point of ever having an atheist speak at that time, unless it's to do an about-face and ask for God's blessing.
At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin spoke to the group, which seemed intractably divided at the time, and in addition to urging them to take a break from debating and actually listen to each other, he suggested that they should also institute prayers as part of their official proceedings:
As it turns out, the convention did not adopt this motion, but not because they didn't believe in the power of prayer. They held off because they thought someone official should do the deed (like an actual chaplain) and they couldn't pay one to do it right at that moment.
However, less than two years later, when the House and Senate convened for the first time under the newly adopted Constitution, they set about following Franklin's advice almost immediately. Hiring chaplains was pretty much the first official thing Congress did.
And we still have this today. The Chaplain of the House is Father Patrick Conroy, a Jesuit. The Chaplain of the Senate is Barry Black, a Seventh Day Adventist and former Chief of Navy Chaplains. He's also the first African American to hold the position. Both officers open legislative sessions with a prayer.