Bush team brushes off atheist's lawsuit
Washington Times ^ | 1/11/05 | Jon Ward
 

 
 

A California atheist's lawsuit to prevent Christian clergy from praying in the presidential inauguration should be dismissed because it is a recycled case about an issue that does not violate the U.S. Constitution, attorneys for President Bush said.
    "There is no reason to 'reverse course' and abandon a widely accepted, noncontroversial aspect of the inaugural ceremony after over 200 years of this proper solemnization of a national event," the president's attorneys said in a 65-page response to the suit.
Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler, who filed the response Friday, wrote that atheist Michael Newdow, a Sacramento, Calif., doctor and lawyer, filed a similar lawsuit in 2002 that was rejected by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco.
    Mr. Newdow's "current action should be dismissed for this reason alone," Mr. Keisler said.
 
 
 
 

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