Former Chief Justice Roy Moore and Foundation for Moral Law File Brief in Federal Appeals Court Arguing that First Amendment Allows Louisiana School Board to Open Meetings With Prayer
June 29, 2005
Case: Doe v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board

On June 28, 2005, former Chief Justice Roy Moore and the Foundation for Moral Law filed an amicus curiae (“friend-of-the-court”) brief in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that the School Board of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana has the right to open its meetings with prayer.  (Read/print brief here.) A father of two Tangipahoa Parish students sued because he was offended by the prayers, and a federal district court held that the prayers violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. 

In the legal brief, Chief Justice Moore and the Foundation urged the court of appeals to look at the words of the First Amendment to see that a school board prayer is not a “law respecting an establishment of religion.”  A prayer is not a “law,” and although religious in nature, prayer does not set up an “establishment of religion.”  The First Amendment was designed to encourage religious freedom not silence prayers and acknowledgments to the God that gave us that freedom.  Our nation's legislative bodies since 1776 have acknowledged and prayed to God and it has never, and never will, violate the Constitution.

The Supreme Court has already removed prayer from schools and football games, stripped the Ten Commandments from classroom walls and—just this week—other public places, and now the federal courts are going after simple prayers at the beginning of a school board meeting.  The Foundation is actively defending our constitutional and inalienable right to acknowledge God and remain one nation under Him.