Earlier this week, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff signed on to a 50-state effort -- plus the Virgin Islands -- to include prayer and references to God in this month's historic inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.
The amicus brief, authored by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and signed by every state A.G., was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., in the case of atheist Michael Newdow v. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Newdow and others aim to eliminate prayer from the ceremony and prevent Obama from being able to say "so help me God."
"When it comes to freedom of religion, we focus on the tradition in history of invoking God in doing the people's business," Shurtleff said. "President Obama has a constitutional right to have an invocation, a benediction and to swear on a Bible."
