This time, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals got it. A three-judge panel dismissed with some dispatch an attempt by meddler Michael Newdow to abolish prayers at presidential inaugurations.
Newdow is the same guy who got the San Francisco-based appeals court to rule the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional in schools. That issue is going to the Supreme Court.
In the past, we've given the 9th Circuit something of a backhanded compliment for taking on big issues such as freedom of religion and gun control, even though we disagree fairly regularly with the justices' opinions. Even when they're wrong, the opinions are well-researched, philosophical examinations of modern-day tests to a 2-century-old Bill of Rights.
This time, though, the court was right to simply show Newdow to the door. In an eight-sentence order, justices ruled Newdow hadn't suffered any concrete or specific injury and barred him from refiling his lawsuit in a lower court.
That's the problem with Newdow. He sees the court as a stage from which he can spout his anti-religion message and, if he can get judges sufficiently confused, might have a chance at a landmark ruling, such as in the Pledge of Allegiance case. Can't the guy just get a Web site?
And while the arguments may be interesting, he's wrong in one very specific way. He has no standing. No harm is done to him by an inaugural prayer. No harm is done to anyone.
As for the issue itself, Newdow is wrong there too. The First Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Perhaps the reason people like Michael Newdow exist is to remind us periodically just how strong and clear the language of that 2-century-old Bill of Rights remains. Now we'll go back to freely practicing our own form of religion, just as Newdow can go back to freely practicing none.
