Prayer and Inauguration

Atheist Michael Newdow has filed a complaint demanding, "strict scrutiny have not been met and defendants must be enjoined from their planned religious activities". Seems Mr. Newdow has a problem with "clergy" prayer at the inauguration ceremony. However, it appears he is fighting an uphill battle since there are several like cases that have been ruled in favor of allowing clergy to pray..... Thank God! Taking the religious spin off the fact - prayer and God has always been part of tradition and is part of our history. The fact that people want to remove part of our history, history based on Christianity and, in my opinion, the primary reason for this country's rapid success, is sickening! They have no problem of desecrating my religious symbols or acts when it is expressed "as art", why should they have any problem whatsoever when religious acts are expressed as intended in an express of faith. Some excerpts:

Mr. Newdow filed his 16-page complaint Dec. 17 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
"The demands of strict scrutiny have not been met and defendants must be enjoined from their planned religious activities," the lawsuit states.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday.
The lawsuit also states: "It is an offense of the highest magnitude that the leader of our nation, while swearing to uphold the Constitution, publicly violates that very document upon taking his oath of office."
[...]
Such prayers turn non-Christians "into second-class citizens and create division on the basis of religion," Mr. Newdow said Friday.
The legal debate centers on two Supreme Court cases -- Marsh v. Chambers in 1983 and Lee v. Weisman in 1992.
The argument in favor of clergy at the inauguration is based on the establishment of chaplains in Congress at its inception, before the Bill of Rights was passed including a prohibition of any "law respecting an establishment of religion."
When the presence of chaplains in the Nebraska Legislature was legally challenged in 1983 by Ernest Chambers, a Nebraska lawmaker, the Supreme Court ruled against him, saying the practice had a "special nook" because it was a long-standing tradition to have government-paid chaplains.
"The Supreme Court has given its constitutional blessing, so to speak," said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a District-based public-interest law firm. "We should not lose our history and the religious underpinnings it is founded on." (Read story here)