WP: Naval Academy Asked to Drop Lunchtime Prayer [View All]

[DeepModem Mom]

Naval Academy Asked to Drop Lunchtime Prayer

By David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 25, 2005; Page B03


The Anti-Defamation League has asked the U.S. Naval Academy to stop holding prayers before midshipmen eat lunch, saying the practice is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

The request was made in a June 17 letter from Abraham H. Foxman, the league's national director, to the academy's superintendent, Vice Admiral Rodney P. Rempt.

In the letter, Foxman says the constitutional separation of church and state is violated "when 4,000 midshipmen of many different faiths are brought together for compulsory prayer."

As precedent, the letter cites a recent ruling by a federal appeals court that organized mealtime prayers at the Virginia Military Institute were unconstitutional....

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In Annapolis, a Naval Academy spokesman, Cmdr. Rod Gibbons, said all midshipmen stand to hear announcements before lunch, which are followed by a prayer, a moment of silence or "devotional thoughts." These observances are led by one of the academy's Catholic, Protestant or Jewish chaplains, Gibbons said....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401553.html