{"id":86,"date":"2008-11-02T16:25:55","date_gmt":"2008-11-02T16:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html"},"modified":"2008-11-02T16:25:55","modified_gmt":"2008-11-02T16:25:55","slug":"conservative-judicial-panel-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Judicial Panel Makes &#8220;New&#8221; Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta name=\"ProgId\" content=\"Word.Document\"><meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><meta name=\"Originator\" content=\"Microsoft Word 11\"><link rel=\"File-List\" href=\"file:\/\/\/C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CBarry%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml\"><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"State\"><\/o:smarttagtype><o:smarttagtype namespaceuri=\"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags\" name=\"place\"><\/o:smarttagtype><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument>  <w:View>Normal<\/w:View>  <w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>  <w:PunctuationKerning\/>  <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>  <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>  <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>  <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>  <w:Compatibility>   <w:BreakWrappedTables\/>   <w:SnapToGridInCell\/>   <w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>   <w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>   <w:DontGrowAutofit\/>  <\/w:Compatibility>  <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel> <\/w:WordDocument><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\"> <\/w:LatentStyles><\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=\"ieooui\"><\/object>\n\n<style>st1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<style><!-- \/* Style Definitions *\/ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal\t{mso-style-parent:\"\";\tmargin:0in;\tmargin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:12.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-fareast-font-family:\"Times New Roman\";}@page Section1\t{size:8.5in 11.0in;\tmargin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;\tmso-header-margin:.5in;\tmso-footer-margin:.5in;\tmso-paper-source:0;}div.Section1\t{page:Section1;}--><\/style>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 10]>\n\n<style> \/* Style Definitions *\/ table.MsoNormalTable\t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\";\tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;\tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0;\tmso-style-noshow:yes;\tmso-style-parent:\"\";\tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;\tmso-para-margin:0in;\tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;\tmso-pagination:widow-orphan;\tfont-size:10.0pt;\tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\";\tmso-ansi-language:#0400;\tmso-fareast-language:#0400;\tmso-bidi-language:#0400;}<\/style>\n\n<![endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It is usually legal &#8220;conservatives&#8221; who claim that appealscourts often &#8220;make&#8221; law, not interpret it.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Well, two of the three judges on the panel of the EleventhCircuit seem to have wildlymisinterpreted the key basis for the only Supreme Court decision which did uphold onespecific kind of &#8220;legislative prayer&#8221; and created a new standard out of whole cloth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p><\/o:p>The heart of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1980-1989\/1982\/1982_82_23\/\"><u>Marsh v. Chambers<\/u><\/a> decision is thatlegislative prayer is permissible only if it is legally non-sectarian (I forone do not believe there is such a thing as a &#8216;non-sectarian&#8221; prayer as atheological matter.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>You have to bepraying to somebody.)<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>For legalpurposes, though, the prayer must not use language or symbols specific to onefaith.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>The Supreme Court emphasized thatwith the <st1:state w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Nebraska<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>chaplain &#8220;there was no indication that the prayer opportunity has beenexploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faithor belief.&#8221;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>It specifically noted, toreemphasize that point that &#8220;the particular chaplain had removed all referencesto Christ.&#8221;<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.au.org\/site\/News2?page=NewsArticle&amp;id=5357&amp;abbr=cs_&amp;security=1001&amp;news_iv_ctrl=1087\">Judge William H. Pryor <\/a>(and you, Jay) seems to think thatnon-sectarianism has nothing to do with the Supreme Court&#8217;s view.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>One prayer at issue in this case invoked the&#8221;God of Abraham, Isaac, and Mohammed&#8221;, but Judge Pryor seems to think a courtcould not possibly determine if that was &#8220;sectarian&#8221;.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>If the prayer were to &#8220;the Lord Satan&#8221; or to&#8221;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pantheon.org\/articles\/o\/odin.html\">Odin<\/a>, father of Thor&#8221;, would he have said the same thing?<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>I don&#8217;t think so.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>It stretches credulity to believe Judge Pryorcan&#8217;t tell a sectarian prayer when he hears one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p>Until this Eleventh Circuit decision, four other federalappellate courts had hewed to the simple principle in <u>Marsh<\/u>.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Invocation of a specific deity or<span style=\"\"> particular <\/span>theological undergirding is notconstitutionally permissible.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Now, thereis a &#8220;split&#8221; (although not exactly an even one) which might make this case acandidate for high court action if the plaintiffs choose to appeal.&nbsp; My view, though, is that the current Supreme Court would likely pass on this issue even if given such an opportunity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p>You and the Eleventh Circuit also raise the old issue of howthe Continental Congress had prayer.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>TheContinental Congress of course predates the writing of or ratification of theBill of Rights.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>You also invoke JusticeWilliam O. Douglas&#8217; dicta that &#8220;we are a religious people whose institutionspresuppose a Supreme Being&#8221;.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Douglas<\/st1:place> of course, was not, of course, the kind of justiceyou&#8217;d want on the Supreme Court in the McCain Era (in the event that comes topass on Tuesday.)<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>He was a strictseparationist and, if you recall, even thought that trees had &#8220;standing&#8221; tosue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is usually legal &#8220;conservatives&#8221; who claim that appealscourts often &#8220;make&#8221; law, not interpret it.&nbsp; Well, two of the three judges on the panel of the EleventhCircuit seem to have wildlymisinterpreted the key basis for the only Supreme Court decision which did uphold onespecific kind of &#8220;legislative prayer&#8221; and created a new standard out of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-politicking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Conservative Judicial Panel Makes &quot;New&quot; Law - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conservative Judicial Panel Makes &quot;New&quot; Law - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is usually legal &#8220;conservatives&#8221; who claim that appealscourts often &#8220;make&#8221; law, not interpret it.&nbsp; Well, two of the three judges on the panel of the EleventhCircuit seem to have wildlymisinterpreted the key basis for the only Supreme Court decision which did uphold onespecific kind of &#8220;legislative prayer&#8221; and created a new standard out of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-02T16:25:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Conservative Judicial Panel Makes \"New\" Law - Lynn v. Sekulow","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Conservative Judicial Panel Makes \"New\" Law - Lynn v. Sekulow","og_description":"It is usually legal &#8220;conservatives&#8221; who claim that appealscourts often &#8220;make&#8221; law, not interpret it.&nbsp; Well, two of the three judges on the panel of the EleventhCircuit seem to have wildlymisinterpreted the key basis for the only Supreme Court decision which did uphold onespecific kind of &#8220;legislative prayer&#8221; and created a new standard out of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html","og_site_name":"Lynn v. Sekulow","article_published_time":"2008-11-02T16:25:55+00:00","author":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/11\/conservative-judicial-panel-ma.html","name":"Conservative Judicial Panel Makes \"New\" Law - Lynn v. 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Sekulow","description":"A debate blog about church, state, faith and politics with Jay Sekulow and Barry W. Lynn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/98ebaf547801cce8ce6fff4c27f51fc8","name":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}