Shortly after a federal appeals court ruled that the cross on the Lehigh County seal was a historical not a religious expression, another federal court has ruled that it’s constitutional for the state House of Representatives to ban guest chaplains who do not believe in God or a higher power from giving invocations to start their sessions.

These rulings came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a large World War I peace monument with a cross along a busy highway in Bladensburg, Maryland, was constitutional. Secular activists and strict believers in the separation of church and state, as outlined in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, find this to be an alarming trend, while traditionalists see it as walking a few steps back from the brink of insanity.

The ruling on the House prayer will allow the chamber’s leadership to go back to the time-honored procedure of rotating the opening prayer among adherents to various faiths who believe in God or other Supreme Being or deity such as Allah, Buddha, etc.

The ruling does not affect the state, Senate which allows nonbelievers to be part of the alternating process.

Our state legislative bodies are not the only ones which begin their sessions with a prayer or a moment of silence. The three members of the Carbon County Board of County Commissioners, for example, alternate giving a prayer to start their weekly meetings. I could find no local school board meetings which open with a prayer.

Both houses of Congress have chaplains who give invocations to open their respective sessions. There also are guest chaplains. A federal court ruled in favor of the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this year that it was not compelled to allow an atheist to open its sessions.

In the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals state House ruling, Judge Thomas L. Ambro, writing for the 2-1 majority, said that since “prayer” implies a higher power, “only theistic invocations can achieve all the purposes of legislative prayer. As a matter of traditional practice, a petition to human wisdom and the power of science does not capture the full sense of ‘prayer,’ historically understood.” He also wrote that because atheists do not believe in a higher power, “they cannot offer religious prayer in the historical sense.”

Rob Boston, a senior adviser for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, slammed the ruling as “discriminatory and disturbing.” He said it shows a preference for those who believe in God while sending a message of exclusion, even scorn, to those who don’t.

“It’s yet another problematic line of recent decisions that allow government entities to endorse and promote religion (just about always Christianity) as long as it’s being done for ‘historic’ purposes,” Boston wrote in a blog.

Most area legislators agree with state Rep. Jerry Knowles, R-Schuylkill-Carbon, who said he viewed the decision as a “victory for people of all faiths, because it directly reflects our constitutional right to religious freedom and the public expression of those freedoms.”

Knowles went on to say that “atheists and other nonbelievers have no right to infringe upon long-established religious freedoms … traced all the way back to Pennsylvania’s founding and William Penn’s Great Holy Experiment.”

After the suit against the House prayer procedure was filed and was being litigated, the chamber’s leadership switched to the practice of having members alternate giving the invocation.

This led to further controversy on March 25 when Rep. Stephanie Borowicz, R-Clinton and Centre counties, gave a strident prayer that praised President Trump’s support of Israel.

Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, D-Philadelphia, the first Muslim legislator to serve in the state House, who was being sworn in the same day, found the prayer to be offensive to her beliefs.

Many legislators criticized Borowicz for the timing of her remarks, but she refused to back down, getting support from several local legislators, including Rep. Doyle Heffley, R-Carbon. While conceding that he would not have gone this route, Heffley said he did not consider Borowicz’s prayer offensive, noting that people pray differently.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com