Activists sue to keep God out of inauguration

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office a week from today, should God play a part in the proceedings?

Since at least 1881, presidents have added the words "So help me God" at the end of their inaugural oaths.

The phrase, however, is not included in the Constitutional oath. And that has rankled leaders in the atheist and humanist communities.

So they've sued. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

"Our Founding Fathers knew that to put an oath to God would be hypocritical to the entire secular Constitution," said Margaret Downey, founder of the Freethought Society of Greater Philadelphia.

She is one of two dozen atheist activists from across the nation who have asked a federal judge to ban God from the Jan. 20 inaugural ceremony.

They also want to stop Pastor Rick Warren of the evangelical Saddleback Church from delivering an invocation at the ceremony.

Their chances of success may be slim to none, but they are hoping to lay the legal groundwork for 2013.

"When an invocation or the 'So help me God' is uttered, it empowers the religious community to demean atheists," Downey said. "It . . . reinforces the notion that America is only comprised of God believers."

The suit's author, Michael Newdow, filed similar inaugural suits by himself in 2001 and 2005, only to see them dismissed on procedural grounds.

Newdow contends that the mention of God and the presence of clergy as part of the official ceremony violate the First Amendment.

And Newdow will take issue if Chief Justice John Roberts includes "So help me God" as he swears in the president.

"Could he say 'So help me white men' or 'So help me Protestant Christians'?" Newdow demanded. "Of course not. But Roberts is the man who's supposed to be defending this document."

Beth Hahn, historical editor for the U.S. Senate Historical Office, said the first reliable account of the phrase's use was on Sept. 22, 1881, when Chester Arthur took the oath following James Garfield's death.

"I found it in the New York Times," Hahn said.

While many say George Washington used the phrase, "There's no evidence," Hahn said. "That account originated with Washington Irving in recollections of the inauguration 60 years after the fact."

Prayers were not a part of the ceremony on the presidential platform until Franklin Delano Roosevelt's inauguration in 1937, Hahn said.

Kermit Roosevelt III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, said the suit will likely be dismissed.

"The argument is not frivolous, however," he said. "I think it's too sensitive an issue for the courts to touch."