May 6, 2010

Day of Prayer ruling has local connection

Ross Dolan • The Daily Republic

Despite an injunction issued April 15 by a western Wisconsin federal district court judge against the nationwide event, Mitchell churches will be open today to celebrate the National Day of Prayer. Civil disobedience? No — at least not yet. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb — after finding in favor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation against President Barack Obama and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs — suspended execution of the injunction until all appeals in the case are exhausted.

Jesse Weins

That could take some time, said Assistant Professor Jesse Weins, chairman of the criminal justice department at Dakota Wesleyan University. Weins found himself thrust into the legal limelight recently when a 2007 law journal article he wrote was cited by Crabb in her decision.

“It kind of surprised me,” Weins said Wednesday in a telephone interview. Weins’ experience includes practicing criminal and civil constitutional law with a non-profit Christian litigation firm, focusing on free speech and religious liberty issues. He said his article, “A Problematic Plurality Precedent,” dealt with the Supreme Court decision-making process and did not reflect personal views against prayer.

More specifically, the article was about the decision-making process used by the Supreme Court in cases regarding displays of the Ten Commandments in and around public buildings. The justices could not reach unanimous opinions on whether to allow the displays.

Weins said his article discussed the impact of such fractured or divided opinions, and their power, good or ill, for setting precedents for future constitutional cases.

In two 2005 cases, the high court issued 5-4 decisions, one favoring the display of a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol and the other against a framed display of the commandments on the wall of a Kentucky courthouse.

“I was just making the case as to what the precedent was and whether that was a good or bad thing,” he said. “(Crabb) was not citing me on her ruling, but on the constitutional tests to be applied in her case. I actually disagreed with her ruling, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Every constitutional religious case involves the same two opponents, Weins said: those who want a strict separation of church and state, and those who believe some mixture of government and religion is permissible as long as there is no government establishment of religion.

Weins, himself a Christian, favors the latter view. He said a federal district court opinion in the National Day of Prayer case “means very little. Any of these cases go to the federal circuit court of appeals and this case has the potential to go to the Supreme Court, too.”

Crabb’s decision not to cancel the National Day of Prayer outright was a smart move, Weins believes.

“She could have declared it unconstitutional, but she allowed it and suspended the enforcement of her ruling. She wisely knows that this has to go up to the circuit court of appeals,” Weins said.

He has no doubt the decision will be condemned by Christian communities.

In the decision, Crabb cited incidences in which the Day of Prayer has been labeled divisive by Jewish and Muslim groups, with one group stating the day was “hijacked by Christian conservatives.”

Nationally syndicated columnist Cal Thomas recently questioned the legitimacy of a holiday in which multiple faiths are asked by proclamation to pray to their respective gods.

“Sending letters to the same person at different addresses would mean that most aren’t delivered,” Thomas wrote, suggesting that a national day of repentance might be more appropriate.

Those controversies miss the entire point of the National Day of Prayer, said the Rev. Liam Mueller, of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and the president of the Mitchell Ministerial Association.

Mueller believes the day is about inclusiveness.

“I guess I treat prayer altruistically,” he said. “I pray for the nation and the world to the exclusion of no one.

“What’s important is that you take time out of your day and pray,” he continued. “Whom or what you pray for is a matter of individual choice, but I think we should include everyone and exclude no one — that’s what prayer is meant for.”