No pray, no pay

Good new and bad news on the church-state front:

On the plus side, Congress struck a blow for sense and sensitivity in the military by rescinding language in Pentagon orders that would have allowed military chaplains to invoke Jesus or any sectarian language in settings where attendance by soldiers is mandatory. Military chaplains have long found the words to strengthen the spirits of soldiers without creating an uncomfortable or hostile atmosphere, and this move returns things to the status quo ante over the objections of the Religious Right. It remains troubling, however, that an attempt to include similar language in the Defense Authorization Act, a critical spending bill, bogged down in conference before Congress suspended for midterm elections.

On the grim side, the House also passed legislation that would make it harder for defenders of the Establishment Clause to sue. The ickily named “Veterans’ Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expression of Religion Protection Act” (what — no mother? no apple pie?) would remove plaintiffs’ ability to recover legal fees and out-of-pocket expenses in cases brought under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause. As the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism points out, there are almost no financial damages in most Establishment Clause cases, making the intent of this legislation clear: “to cut off access to the courts to those plaintiffs who prevail in court for whom attorneys’ fees and court cases are necessary to make a lawsuit financially feasible.” Upset that your child is being forced to recite the Lord’s Prayer before football games? Are you upset enough to absorb the full legal bill?

The right to seek legal protection is meaningless if plaintiffs are unable to bear the high price of justice. By cherry-picking a single constitutional issue for this sort of shoddy treatment, the House has opened — you’ll pardon the pagan language — a judicial Pandora’s box.