Can anyone be surprised at this? Fox News reports that a group of Christian students were told it was illegal to pray outside the Supreme Court building and ordered to leave.
The students were part of a junior high school American History class at Wickenburg Christian Academy in Arizona. After taking pictures on the steps of the Supreme Court building, their teacher gathered them to a side location where they formed a circle and began to pray.
According to Nate Kellum, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a police officer “abruptly” interrupted the prayer and ordered the group to cease and desist.
“They were told to stop praying because they were violating the law and they had to take their prayer elsewhere,” Kellum told FOX News Radio.
A spokesperson for the Court said the Marshal of the Court will look into the events alleged by the ADF.
“The Court does not have a policy prohibiting prayer,” said public information officer Kathy Arberg in an email to FOX News Radio.
So the group of 15 students and seven adults left the Supreme Court and relocated to a sidewalk – where Rigo said the children stood in a gutter – and continued their prayer.
Any and all Jesus contagion must be stopped.
So let me get this straight police in Arizona shouldn’t be allowed to ask illegal aliens if they’re illegal but police should stop Christians from praying. Yeah, that makes sense.
Still waiting for Obama to come out rashly and announce that the cops acted stupidly…
Weasel Zippers wonders: “ACLU comes to defend their First Amendment rights in 5..4..3..2…no, wait, the students were Christian, not Muslim…”
July 16, 2010 at 4:53 am
I'd love to hear the cop's side of the story.
July 16, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Praying is now unAmerican.
July 17, 2010 at 8:34 am
The policy at the Supreme Court, as I recall, is that there are no demonstrations allowed on the steps. Recently at the Jefferson Memorial a dance group was told to move along when they began expressing themselves in dance and one of them was arrested.
Whether such demonstration-free zones should exist in public spaces is debatable, but there isn't any particular anti-Christian bias here. Some might object that prayer is not an act of demonstration, but wouldn't we have to agree that it is a witness.
July 17, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Another reason why I love my Rosary. I can put my hand in my pocket and pray away in a defiant act of civil disobedience!
July 19, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Rob – but the point is that praying should not ever need to be "civil disobedience." It is protected (supposedly) by the highest law of the land.
July 20, 2010 at 12:17 pm
No one can stop you from praying. Ask Paul.