Prayer ruling 'flawed'

Charlie Butts and Jody Brown - OneNewsNow - 4/16/2010 7:50:00 AMBookmark and ShareAmerica prayer

At least one Christian legal firm says yesterday's ruling on the National Day of Prayer is flawed and likely will be overturned.

On Thursday in Wisconsin, U.S. Federal Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued that the government setting aside a day of prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, FFRF is challenging the constitutionality of a 1988 federal law giving the president of the United States the authority to designate the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer.

In her ruling, Crabb wrote that government involvement in prayer is constitutional only as long as it does not call for religious action, which the prayer day does.

"It goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context," the judge wrote. "In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience."

Jordan Sekulow (ACLJ)Attorney Jordan Sekulow of the American Center for Law & Justice says Crabb's decision is "flawed."

"The Establishment Clause is to mandate the federal government from establishing a national church, to say that you have to read a specific Bible or to say a specific prayer," he clarifies. "That's not what's done in this National Day of Prayer Proclamation. Here, we are again just signifying and looking back on our history, respecting our history of the founding of the Judeo-Christian country."

Sekulow says the decision will be quickly appealed.

"We represented...31 members of Congress [in the case]," says the attorney. "We'll be ready to file our amicus brief to the appeal to the Seventh  Circuit Court of Appeals -- and I'm sure the president and the White House, the executive branch, are getting their appeal ready as well."

Meanwhile, the White House has indicated President Obama will go ahead with issuing a proclamation for this year's event, schedule for Thursday, May 6. In her ruling, Judge Crabb indicated this year's day of prayer will go on as planned.

Ruling described as 'atrocious'

Randy Forbes Congressman Randy Forbes (R-Virginia) is one of the 31 members of Congress mentioned by Sekulow. He says Thursday's decision "represents a movement we are seeing across the country of a small minority who want to exclude faith, religion, and morality from the marketplace of ideas" and "seeks to unravel [the] very foundation our nation was built upon."

 Forbes, who founded and chairs the Congressional Prayer Caucus, calls the decision "atrocious," but says it shows the importance of elections, since the president appoints federal judges and the Senate confirms them.

"I think it's an atrocious decision, one that I certainly hope can be turned around on appeal," says the congressman. "This is one judge -- but I think it should bring attention to the fact that elections do matter, because elections determine who are going to be sitting in those benches."

Forbes says the judge's ruling will likely make this year's prayers more intense than ever. "I think you're going to see a greater intensity level this May on the National Day of Prayer -- and perhaps that will turn into a very good thing," he suggests.

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear lawsuit against UC-Hastings

High Court will hear case involving right of religious student organizations to determine their own leadership

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday agreed to decide whether a public university can refuse to recognize a religious student group because the group requires its leaders to share its religious beliefs.  Attorneys with the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund Center for Academic Freedom represent a student chapter of CLS, which Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco refused to recognize because the group requires all of its officers and voting members to subscribe to its basic Christian beliefs.

“Public universities shouldn’t single out Christian student groups for discrimination.  All student groups have the right to associate with people of like-mind and interest,” said Senior Counsel Kim Colby with the CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom.  “We trust the Supreme Court will not allow Hastings to continue to deprive CLS of this right by forcing the group to abandon its identity as a Christian student organization.”

“Christian students have the right to gather as Christians for a common purpose and around shared beliefs,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor with the ADF Center for Academic Freedom.  “It’s completely unreasonable--and unconstitutional--for a public university to disrupt the purposes of private student groups by forcing them to accept as members and officers those who oppose the very ideas they advocate.”

CLS Litigation Counsel Timothy J. Tracey, now with ADF, argued the case Christian Legal Society v. Martinez before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in March.  The appellate court refused to reverse a district judge’s decision against CLS, so the case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

See case summary and legal documents.

The ADF Center for Academic Freedom defends religious freedom at America’s public universities.  ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith.  The CLS Center for Law & Religious Freedom is the advocacy division of the Christian Legal Society, a nationwide association of Christian attorneys, law students, law professors, and judges.

Jewish leaders in the United States now believe that new sanctions being weighed against Iran will still leave an inevitable choice: Either accept a nuclear-armed Iran, or launch a military strike against its nuclear facilities.

That’s the sobering conclusion that emerges from interviews conducted by The Jewish Daily Forward, the online site of the weekly Forward newspaper.

“Between where we are today and the two ultimate options, there is still a lot of space to be filled,” said David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee. "The question is, Will it be filled? What’s contemplated currently seems very inadequate to the task.”

New U.N. sanctions are still being negotiated and will likely target the Iranian economy and companies doing business with the Islamic Republic.

However, previous economic sanctions, including the freezing of Iranian assets, have not deterred Iran from continuing its nuclear program. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that only $43 million in Iranian money has been frozen in the U.S. — a quarter of what Iran earns from oil sales in one day.

Harsher sanctions could seek to cut off Iran’s supply of refined petroleum — Iran must import a large percentage of its gasoline.

“If the new sanctions touch on the Iranian energy sector — and that remains to be seen — Iranians are already, we’re told, trying to hoard more refined energy product to avoid any effect on their domestic economy,” Harris told the Forward.

“It’s not clear that even strong sanctions, however well intentioned, will have the desired effect.”

Keith Weissman, former top Iran analyst for the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, said: “There is no question that sanctions like this will hurt Iranian economic activity, but will they do what we want them to do, which is to affect Iran’s ability to do what we don’t want them to do, like build nuclear weapons?”

There is also concern that sanctions that negatively impact average Iranians could push them to rally around their government, which has grown increasingly unpopular at home.

“Who will suffer? Will it be the revolutionary guards, the regime or the people?” said Yoram Peri, director of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.

“If you make the people suffer, generally they will tend to support their government rather than revolt.”

The Insider Report disclosed earlier that President Obama wants to hold off passage of a bill imposing stern American sanctions so he can maintain “flexibility” in dealing with other countries in confronting Iran.

Indeed, effective sanctions will demand “real coordination” among many countries, Peri added.

“And to tell you the truth, I’m not sure whether we’ll get there.”

The difficulty in imposing effective sanctions became clear this past week with reports that a state-owned Chinese refiner made plans to ship 30,000 metric tons of gasoline to Iran. European traders halted shipments earlier this year.

Unipec, the trading arm of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., or Sinopec, arranged to load the oil tanker Hongbo with gasoline in Singapore, according to Singapore ship brokers, who said the tanker would likely go directly to Iran.

Sinopec, Asia’s largest refiner, had not sold gasoline to Iran since 2004, Reuters reported.

A petroleum trader told Reuters: “As long as there is money to be made, and economic benefits to be taken advantage of, Iran will always find ready sellers of gasoline from the international market.”