{"id":5146,"date":"2011-08-02T12:36:01","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T16:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=5146"},"modified":"2011-08-01T23:23:56","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T03:23:56","slug":"ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally","title":{"rendered":"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge\u00a0has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas by atheists\u00a0opposing his participation in a prayer rally next weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, asked the judge to declare Mr. Perry\u2019s involvement in the event unconstitutional, reports the New York Times&#8217; Manny Fernandez:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a separate motion filed earlier this week, the group\u2019s lawyers sought immediately to stop Mr. Perry, who is contemplating a presidential bid, from either taking part in the rally or promoting it in his official capacity as governor, arguing that doing so violates the First Amendment\u2019s requirement of separation of church and state.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Gray H. Miller, of Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, ruled that the plaintiffs \u2014 the foundation and five of its Houston-area members \u2014 had suffered no concrete injury and that the governor\u2019s invitations for Texans to join him in a day of prayer were \u201crequests, not commands.\u201d People offended by the governor\u2019s prayer rally can either not attend, not pray or express their disapproval using their First Amendment rights, the judge said. He dismissed the lawsuit and the motion to stop the governor\u2019s official participation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/29\/us\/politics\/29perry.html\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal judge\u00a0has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas by atheists\u00a0opposing his participation in a prayer rally next weekend. The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, asked the judge to declare Mr. Perry\u2019s involvement in the event unconstitutional, reports the New York Times&#8217; Manny Fernandez: In a separate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[674,354],"tags":[2232,2223,1278,1277],"class_list":["post-5146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheist","category-prayer","tag-atheist","tag-prayer","tag-prayer-rally","tag-rick-perry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally<\/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\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor\u2019s-prayer-rally\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A federal judge\u00a0has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas by atheists\u00a0opposing his participation in a prayer rally next weekend. The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, asked the judge to declare Mr. Perry\u2019s involvement in the event unconstitutional, reports the New York Times&#8217; Manny Fernandez: In a separate&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor\u2019s-prayer-rally\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-08-02T16:36:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-08-02T03:23:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally","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\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor\u2019s-prayer-rally","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally","og_description":"A federal judge\u00a0has dismissed a lawsuit filed against Gov. Rick Perry of Texas by atheists\u00a0opposing his participation in a prayer rally next weekend. The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, asked the judge to declare Mr. Perry\u2019s involvement in the event unconstitutional, reports the New York Times&#8217; Manny Fernandez: In a separate&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor\u2019s-prayer-rally","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-08-02T16:36:01+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-08-02T03:23:56+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally","name":"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-08-02T16:36:01+00:00","dateModified":"2011-08-02T03:23:56+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/08\/ny-times-judge-dismisses-atheist-suit-vs-texas-governor%e2%80%99s-prayer-rally#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"NY Times: Judge dismisses atheist suit vs. Texas governor\u2019s prayer rally"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5146"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5315,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5146\/revisions\/5315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}