{"id":6181,"date":"2009-01-16T09:41:39","date_gmt":"2009-01-16T09:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/01\/obama-can-say-so-help-me-god-w.html"},"modified":"2009-01-16T09:41:39","modified_gmt":"2009-01-16T09:41:39","slug":"obama-can-say-so-help-me-god-w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/01\/obama-can-say-so-help-me-god-w.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama can say “so help me God” when he takes the oath of office"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to a federal judge. He didn’t think he had the authority to tell the chief justice of the Supreme Court that he was doing something unconstitutional<\/a>! Poor atheists! Now they face the discrimination<\/a> of hearing the words “so help me God” spoken at the inauguration and of hearing God or gods being prevailed upon in prayer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A federal judge on Thursday refused to order the words “so help me God” taken out of President-elect Barack Obama’s oath of office next week or to prevent ministers from praying at the inauguration celebration.
\nU.S. District Judge Reggie Walton turned down a request from a group of atheists and agnostics to force Chief Justice John Roberts not to add those words to the 35-word inaugural oath outlined in the Constitution.
\n[…]
\nWalton said he didn’t have the authority to order Obama not to say the words, saying the president-elect had a right to free speech. The judge also questioned whether he had the authority to give the chief justice an order not to say “so help me God” after the oath.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Could you imagine a federal judge trying to tell the chief justice that he was doing something unconstitutional. Pretty funny. The judge also noted that prayer at the ceremony didn’t imply that the government was endorsing religion.
\nSo, there you go, atheists! I guess you’ll either have to mute the prayers and the final words of the oath or just listen to them like an adult, and realize that you can’t control the exercise of speech and religion of others.
\n(via<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a federal judge. He didn’t think he had the authority to tell the chief justice of the Supreme Court that he was doing something unconstitutional! Poor atheists! Now they face the discrimination of hearing the words “so help me God” spoken at the inauguration and of hearing God or gods being prevailed upon…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[406,8,399,402],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-christianity","category-politics-2","category-religion-2"],"yoast_head":"\nObama can say "so help me God" when he takes the oath of office - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/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\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/01\/obama-can-say-so-help-me-god-w.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama can say "so help me God" when he takes the oath of office - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"According to a federal judge. 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