Legal challenge to National Day of Prayer thrown out

A federal judge last year had struck down as unconstitutional the National Day of Prayer. But on Thursday, a US appeals court ruled that the people who had brought the case lacked legal standing.
By Warren Richey, Staff writer
April 14, 2011

A US appeals court on Thursday overturned a decision by a federal judge in Wisconsin last year that struck down as unconstitutional the National Day of Prayer.

Although that ruling had been stayed pending the appeal, the appeals-court decision clears the way for President Obama to issue a new proclamation, declaring May 5 as this year’s National Day of Prayer.

The three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago did not examine the district judge’s legal conclusion that Mr. Obama’s proclamation of a National Day of Prayer and the statute authorizing that action violated the First Amendment’s prohibition on the establishment of a state-sponsored religion.

Instead, the appeals court ruled that the people who brought the case, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, lacked the necessary legal standing to file their lawsuit. the rest