This is not about forcing religion on people. This is about whether your spiritual leader can participate in your local community without Washington, D.C., interfering. This is about your local school board asking your pastor to give a prayer without a federal judge, telling your pastor what he can say as he offers his prayer.

Every federal judge is appointed by the president, and usually shares that president’s philosophy on the law. The judge who outlawed saying Jesus in prayers in Indiana, Judge Hamilton, was appointed by President Clinton. When the Seventh Circuit appeals court reversed the trial court on a 2-1 vote, the two reversing judges where appointed by President Reagan, and the one who sided with Judge Hamilton was also appointed by Mr. Clinton.

The Clinton judges are willing to impose a national secular agenda on society, while the Reagan judges are willing to say it’s none of the federal government’s business to outlaw saying Jesus when that name is spoken by an ordained clergyman during prayer.

Both Senators Clinton and Obama promise to appoint judges like Justice Ginsburg, former chief counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union, to our courts. Senator McCain commits to appointing judges like Justices Roberts and Alito.

The last thing America’s founders would ever approve of would be federal officials listening in to prayers, ready to forbid certain clergy to participate if they refused to allow the government to dictate to them that they could not name their deity.

As Mr. Klukowski writes in his closing paragraph, “preventing federal courts from involving themselves in the wording of any prayer goes to the heart of what the Framers wanted the Establishment Clause to achieve.”

Amen to that.