Houston, Texas - U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston will hold a hearing Thursday to determine whether a court injunction should bar Gov. Rick Perry from promoting or participating in his Aug. 6 prayer event in Reliant Stadium.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin nonprofit that pushes for a strict separation of church and state, filed a lawsuit last week claiming that Perry’s endorsement of the event amounted to official sponsorship of religion in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Briefs filed this week give a preview of arguments at the Thursday hearing.
Freedom From Religion will argue that Perry, by calling the nation to join him in a Christian prayer and fasting service, “deliberately and preferentially lends the prestige and credibility” of his office to promote a particular religious view.
“The governor is expressly promoting religion in general and Christianity in particular,” the organization’s request for an injunction says. “A more explicit promotion of Christianity by a governor in his official capacity is practically unprecedented.”
The foundation’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of five Houston-area atheists and agnostics who claimed Perry’s prayer rally discriminates against them “by conditioning attendance on a willingness to engage in Christian prayer, or at least to quietly tolerate such prayer.”
“The plaintiffs are made to feel like political outsiders and as second class citizens in the Texas political community,” the brief said.
But Perry’s reply brief, filed today by Attorney General Greg Abbott, urges Miller to reject calls for an injunction that, while allowing Perry to attend The Response, would ban him from speaking during the event or continue to promote it.
The five plaintiffs have no standing to sue Perry because they are not harmed by his actions or The Response, Abbott argues.
“Feelings of slight or exclusion do not give rise to standing to sue the governor,” his brief says.
The situation, Abbott argues, is no different than the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in April that tossed out a similar foundation lawsuit that challenged a law requiring the U.S. president to issue a National Day of Prayer proclamation.
Nobody is obligated to pray, and calls to pray carry no penalty for noncompliance, the appeals court ruled, adding: “No one is injured by a request that can be declined.”
Said Abbott: “An invitation for those who wish to pray to do so neither establishes a religion nor coerces a religious exercise.”
Perry’s brief also said his actions are protected by the First Amendment’s rights to free speech and assembly - and not limited by the same amendment’s prohibition on government-established religion.
As a citizen, Perry has the right “to speak and to freely exercise his religion, including speaking at a day of prayer event,” the brief states.
Perry’s brief includes an affidavit from his general counsel, Jeffrey Boyd, that says the Governor’s Office spent about $290 in postage and paper to invite Congress, governors, legislators and other politicians to The Response. All other government costs associated with the event were “nominal,” Boyd said, adding that a video of Perry on the event’s website - created by event organizer, the American Family Association - was taken in a private office with a non-government camera.