Court Upholds Ban on Atheists Saying Opening Prayers in Pennsylvania Legislature

A group of atheists, agnostics, and humanists sued members of the Pennsylvania House over their “theist only” policy that prevents chaplains who are spiritual but don’t believe in a higher power from delivering opening invocations at the legislature. About 85% of sessions in the House begin with a prayer, and about 90% of those prayers are delivered by Christian chaplains. The group wanted to invoke prayers not based on the presence of a higher power, but instead provided messages about equality, hope, and tolerance. Though the group said that the ban violated the Constitution’s establishment clause, which bars the government from endorsing specific religious beliefs, a federal appeals court ruled against them, saying that the Pennsylvania legislature’s ban is constitutional. Judge Thomas Ambro said that prayers inherently assume the presence of a higher power. “Only theistic invocations can achieve all the purposes of legislative prayer...As a matter of traditional practice, a petition to human wisdom and the power of science does not capture the full sense of ‘prayer,’ historically understood. Because [nontheists] do not proclaim the existence of a higher power, they cannot offer religious prayer in the historical sense,” he said. But Rob Boston, an advisor to Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which worked with the plaintiffs on the case, said that the policy promotes exclusion based on religious preferences. “It’s yet another in a problematic line of recent decisions that allow government entities to endorse and promote religion (just about always Christianity) as long as it’s being done for ‘historic’ purposes,” he said. This decision is a reversal of a lower court decision in which the judge agreed with the plaintiffs that the ban was unconstitutional. The group has not decided if they will appeal, but Elaine Howard Ecklund, the director of the religion and public life program at Rice University, said that courts will likely face more and more cases like this soon. “As the number of non religious people continues to grow, alongside those who are members of minority religious traditions as well as evangelical Christians, all of whom say they pray, we will need to continue to re-configure what religious pluralism means with relationship to our nation’s most public religious rituals,” Howard Ecklund said. [Huffington Post; FOX News]

PURDUE PHARMA | The company that introduced OxyContin in the United States, Purdue Pharma, is negotiating a potential multibillion-dollar settlement for the nearly 2,000 lawsuits brought against the company by state and local governments. The governments claim that the company willfully contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic by misleading doctors and the public about the safety of their products. Some familiar with the case said that the governments are now seriously considering the offer, which is likely the last chance Purdue has to avoid bankruptcy; a judge in Oklahoma recently ruled against drugmakers in the first case brought by a state government that went to trial, finding Johnson & Johnson liable for fueling the state’s opioid crisis and ordering the company to pay $572 million. Purdue also lost a case in 2007, where they were accused in federal court of misleading doctor’s about the drug’s addictiveness. The company now hopes to settle. “While Purdue Pharma is prepared to defend itself vigorously in the opioid litigation, the company has made clear that it sees little good coming from years of wasteful litigation and appeals. The people and communities affected by the opioid crisis need help now. Purdue believes a constructive global resolution is the best path forward, and the company is actively working with the state attorneys general and other plaintiffs to achieve this outcome,” reads a press release. In addition to money, the settlement would also force the Sackler family, who founded and grew the company, to give up ownership of Purdue and provide $3 billion of their own money towards the fund for state and local governments. [New York Times; Washington Post]

GENDER SURGERY | Idaho Gov. Brad Little criticized the decision of a federal appeals court that requires the state to pay for “gender confirmation surgery” for a prisoner who would like to undergo a male to female reassignment. Little said the state now plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. "We just heartily disagree. It's a bad precedent, it's going to be expensive...and it's just contrary to good practices, and it's another example of an activist court getting in the middle of something and creating a precedent that's going to be expensive for the taxpayers of Idaho and potentially all the taxpayers of the United States,” he said. The prisoner, Adree Edmo, asked for the surgery because she suffers from gender dysphoria, a condition that causes anxiety for people whose biological sex does not match their gender identity. The court ruled that her gender dysphoria causes her to “experience persistent distress so severe it limits her ability to function” and therefore, the surgery should be allowed. "We hold that where, as here, the record shows that the medically necessary treatment for a prisoner’s gender dysphoria is gender confirmation surgery, and responsible prison officials deny such treatment with full awareness of the prisoner’s suffering, those officials violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment,” the court ruled. [CNS News; Washington Post]

FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY | The California legislature passed a bill that would require healthcare company Kaiser Permanente to disclose the revenue and profits from each of their individual hospitals. Currently, Kaiser provides all hospitals’ information in one set of numbers. Some legislators have said that is not enough, however, and the company should have to report on individual hospitals so that the legislature can monitor rate changes for services. A spokesperson for Kaiser said that they had tried to work with the bill’s author, state Sen. Richard Pan, a Democrat, but were not able to reach an agreement. "We are disappointed the sponsor of the bill continues to choose conflict over compromise," Kaiser said. But Pan, who is also a physician, said that Kaiser is trying to avoid the reporting system that other healthcare companies in the state have to abide by. "For too long, Kaiser Permanente has operated under a different set of rules when it comes to financial transparency, and this bill will finally bring the corporation more in line with other hospitals and insurance companies," Pan said. [KCRA; Modern Healthcare; Fierce Healthcare]

FREE COLLEGE | Birmingham Mayor Randall Woofin announced a new public-private partnership that will provide college tuition funding to high school graduates in the city. “Starting in 2020, any Birmingham City School student that walks across the graduation stage will have the opportunity to attend any in-state two or four year school tuition free,” he wrote on Twitter. He later clarified that the program only applies to public colleges. The initiative is part of a larger project called Birmingham Promise, which also offers juniors and seniors in high school paid apprenticeships throughout the city. [AL.com]