The most recent case comes from Akron, Ohio, where there has been a long-standing tradition of saying The Lord's Prayer before city council meetings. It's always interesting to reading how having a religious ritual as part of government business is a "tradition" from "way back," as if that could in any manner justify the practice. Rather than fight a challenge from Americans United, council members decided to just drop the practice for now.
Council members met in executive session for about an hour Monday night to discuss the issue. Council President Marco Sommerville said they felt they didn't have a choice. ''There was no sense in putting the city in harm's way,'' he said. The recitation of the prayer has been a long-standing tradition for council one that most members didn't want to cease.
In a Sept. 28 letter to council, Americans United said ''prayers are permissible only insofar as they are nonsectarian in other words, only if they do not use language or symbols specific to one religion.'' The group said prayers read by government bodies ''containing sectarian rather than ecumenical and inclusive language have repeatedly been held to be unconstitutional.'' The group urged council to cease its practice or to ''ensure that the prayers are nonsectarian.''
''By failing to do so, the council would risk subjecting the city to costly litigation,'' the group wrote, asking for a reply within 30 days.
Source: Akron Beacon Journal
The city council considered trying a program of different prayers every week from different religious perspectives, which is something that other municipalities have done. Sommerville, though, is quoted as saying that such a program would be too complicated — and he's probably right. One could be designed, but it would take time and work. Who would pay for this? Akron taxpayers — but is designing a religious program for having religious rituals during government time an appropriate use of taxes? Hardly.
Sommerville is also quoted as saying that they knew they would lose any court case. Not only would they have to pay their own legal fees, but they'd end up having to pay the legal fees of Americans United as well. Some Christian Nationalists want to prevent people from collecting legal fees when they successfully challenge government violations of the First Amendment — but only violations of the Establishment Clause.
They would leave open the possibility of collecting legal fees in other cases, thus revealing that their real intention is to make it harder to get the government to stop such unconstitutional practices before anything has to go to court. What they want is to ensure that the government has the authority to single out one religion and one tradition’s religious rituals for favoritism, special treatment, and promotion.