By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON -The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a Florida city’s bid to fend off a lawsuit by atheists accusing officials of violating constitutional limits on government involvement in religion by staging a prayer vigil following gun violence that wounded three children.
The justices turned away an appeal by the city of Ocala of a lower court’s ruling endorsing the right of the plaintiffs, backed by the American Humanist Association, to sue over legal harms they said they sustained attending the 2014 vigil in which uniformed police chaplains preached a Judeo-Christian message.
The plaintiffs accused Ocala of violating the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment “establishment clause,” which restricts governmental involvement in religion. Ocala had urged the justices to reject the claim that the plaintiffs, as “offended observers” of religious messages, had sustained legally recognizable injuries.
Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting from the decision to reject the appeal, expressed “serious doubts” about the legitimacy of lawsuits by offended observers.
“Offended observer standing appears to warp the very essence of the judicial power vested by the Constitution,” Thomas wrote, adding that “federal courts are authorized ‘to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies,’ not hurt feelings.”
Thomas has taken a broad view of religious rights during more than three decades as a justice.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch separately wrote that he agreed with denying the appeal at this stage of the litigation but expressed doubt that the plaintiffs had proper legal standing to sue.
Ocala city officials helped organize and conduct the one-hour prayer vigil following a series of shootings in which three children were struck by stray bullets. Ocala’s police department on its Facebook page posted a letter co-signed by the police chief and an activist affiliated with a local Baptist church that promoted the vigil and urged “fervent prayer” to help reduce crime in the community.