A federal appeals court in Louisiana has rebuffed an attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to keep prayer out of public meetings. The Tangipahoa Parish School Board has been the target of multiple lawsuits in recent years over religious issues, this time over the right to open meetings with prayer.
On Wednesday the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ban on such invocations and ruled that the "offended observer" represented by the ACLU lacked standing to bring the case. The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which helped represent the school board, called the ruling a serious blow to the ACLU’s ability to “bully its way into court without any proven, concrete injury.”
“The practice of opening public meetings with prayer is and always has been lawful and appropriate,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Mike Johnson. "Simply claiming that one is ‘offended’ by religious speech or symbols is not enough to spark a federal case.”
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, agreed: “The ACLU has been using the façade of so-called ‘offended observers’ for years in an attempt to scrub the public square of any reference to God,” he said. “It’s nice to see this attempt rejected in this particular case, but there is a need to ensure that this loophole is closed permanently.”
