US Chaplain Alliance Files Brief With U.S. Supreme Court in Support of Chaplains’ Right to Pray

founders prayer
First Prayer in Congress, September 1774, in Carpenters Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (CNA)

It’s really unbelievable that military chaplains have to plead with the Supreme Court for the right to pray at public meetings.
What has happened to this great nation?
The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in support of the right of Americans to pray before public meetings.
The Alliance Defending Freedom reported:

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, an organization dedicated to protecting the right of service members to live out their faith as they protect the liberties of all Americans, has filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the right of Americans to pray before public meetings.

The religious liberties case, Town of Greece v. Galloway, provides the U.S. Supreme Court the opportunity to affirm America’s long-standing practice of opening public meetings with prayer.

“We are calling for the Supreme Court to affirm public prayer, which is rooted in our nation’s history and tradition, and to allow chaplains and others to continue to pray in public meetings, just as our founding fathers sought to ensure,” said CH (COL) Ron Crews, executive director for Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty. “Our military chaplaincy provides an elegant model, created by the Founders and upheld by the courts, of a respectful accommodation of religious belief–a model whose principles can and should be applied to legislative prayer.”

“Our brief makes the point that a military chaplain, just like a chaplain in a town council meeting, cannot fulfill his or her duties with the federal courts looking over one shoulder and a hypothetical observer looking over the other to assess when a religious activity may make an observer feel like an outsider,” Crews explained.

Related… The First Prayer in Congress
Something liberals frown at today–

“O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle!

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.

Amen.”
Reverend Jacob Duché
Rector of Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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Thanks for sharing!