Atheist lawsuit awaits ruling

A federal judge is scheduled to rule today on a California atheist’s lawsuit seeking to bar clergy-led prayer during President Bush’s second inauguration next week.

Judge John D. Bates yesterday heard oral arguments in the case during a two-hour hearing before a packed courtroom in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Michael Newdow, the 50-year old Sacramento, Calif., lawyer who filed the suit against President Bush last month, took part in the proceedings by telephone.

Outside the courthouse, representatives of religious groups protested Mr. Newdow’s suit. The Rev. Patrick Mahoney, executive director of the Christian Defense Coalition, and the Rev. Rob Schenck, president of the National Clergy Council, held a brief prayer service before the hearing.

They also carried petitions with 22,000 signatures they have collected supporting prayer in the inauguration, saying they will present the documents to the court today. They also plan to give copies to the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

Mr. Newdow pressed his claim that any prayers acknowledging a deity, Christian or otherwise, violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

“The government is coming out and saying, ‘OK everybody, while you watch, we are a Christian nation,’” Mr. Newdow said. “It is a declaration to the nation and the world that we are a Christian nation.”

Mr. Newdow, a staunch atheist, says this causes him personal injury by making him feel like an “outsider.” Repeatedly during yesterday’s hearing, he compared prayer during the inauguration to discrimination against blacks.

“This is just as harmful,” he said.

Mr. Newdow spent much of his time explaining how this lawsuit differs from one he brought in 2002. That suit was rejected by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco.

He said he did not attend the 2001 inauguration, but plans to attend next week’s event, so the prayers will be more forcefully “imposed” on him.

Even if the court were to rule in Mr. Newdow’s favor, the president could still place his hand on a Bible when sworn in, and Christian songs could still be performed.

Judge Bates pressed Mr. Newdow and Mr. Bush’s attorneys on whether the clergy-led prayers were official governmental action or private touches on the inauguration added by the president acting in a nonofficial capacity.

The president’s attorneys asserted that the clergy’s presence is the president’s preference, which is protected under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.

“This is not state action,” said George Terwilliger, one of five attorneys representing Mr. Bush.

He said it would be a serious matter for the court to “cross the separation of powers” and enjoin the president from carrying out his personal wishes at a public ceremony.

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