Appeals court lifts ban on praying in Jesus' name

INDIANAPOLIS (BP)--An appeals court panel apparently has given the OK for prayers mentioning Jesus' name in the Indiana state legislature to return, tossing out a lawsuit Oct. 30 that had garnered national attention two years ago when the prayers were ruled unconstitutional.

The 2-1 decision by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals is a victory for social conservatives, although the justices avoided dealing directly with whether the prayers violate the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as the lower court had ruled.

Instead, the majority ruled that the four Indiana residents who brought the lawsuit lacked standing because they had "not shown that the legislature has extracted from them tax dollars for the establishment and implantation" of a program that supposedly violates the Establishment Clause.

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