Center agrees seniors can sing religious songs

Center agrees seniors can sing religious songs

A letter from a Christian legal defense firm has helped restore the right of senior citizens to sing a Christian doxology before meals at a Montana facility, after that right was temporarily suspended.

Complaints about members of the Bozeman Senior Center singing a religious song before meals prompted the managing board to suspend the practice amid fears of an ACLU lawsuit or loss of federal funds for the center's Meals on Wheels program.

Alliance Defense Fund attorneys contacted the center's board to assure them that such a practice did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, and to inform them that ADF helped to resolve a similar situation involving a senior center in Balch Springs, Texas. After another meeting, board members voted unanimously to once again allow the doxology.

An ADF statement quotes Bozeman Senior Center's board chairman, Rodger McCormick, as saying he and his fellow members were "ecstatic and happy to go back to what the majority wanted."