(Photo: Flickr Commons/Joe Gratz)
A judge has issued a decree banning a Christian Texas judge from opening his courtroom proceedings in prayer, providing a legal victory to a prominent secular legal organization.Â
The Freedom from Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit established to promote a strict separation of church and state, won a challenge to prohibit Judge Wayne Mack, a justice of the peace from an area north of Houston in Montgomery County, from opening his courtroom with non-mandatory chaplain-led prayer.Â
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt ruled on May 21 in favor of FRFF and anonymous local attorney âJohn Roe,â who has appeared in Mackâs courtroom at least 20 times and witnessed the chaplain-led prayers.Â