that the plaintiff lacked standing as a taxpayer and as someone allegedly "excluded" from the "guest speaker" program (we discuss the court's standing discussion at more length infra Part I). See id. at 1140-44. Dissenting from the court's standing disposition, then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who would have reached and rejected the merits of plaintiff s claims, concluded that "existing legislative prayer practice. Marsh plainly indicates, fits into a special nook - a narrow space tightly sealed offfrom otherwise applicable first amendment doctrine." Id; at 1147 (R.B. Ginsburg, J., dissenting from the court's standing disposition). Judge Ginsburg continued:
The prayer practice that has existed in legislative assemblies in the United States for 'more than 200 years'... is not subject to constitutional assault given the High Court's recent and resounding declaration. ... Kurtz has, under current jurisprudence, no tenable free speech, establishment clause, or due process claim to advance.
Id,
2.     Plaintiffs Complaint
In the face of Marsh. Murray, and Kurtz. plaintiff filed this pro se action challenging the constitutionality of Congress's chaplaincy practice. The Complaint names, as defendants, four congressional officers, i.e.. those officers responsible for paying the House and Senate chaplains and their staffs, the Congress of the United States, and the United States of America.
Plaintiffs Complaint contains few factual allegations; the bulk of the Complaint and its appendices is devoted to plaintiffs legal arguments.4 Plaintiff alleges that he is a minister ordained by the Universal Life Church and the founder of the First Amendmist Church of True
opportunity to participate personally as a speaker." See 829 F.2d at 1147 (R.B. Ginsburg, J., dissenting from the court's standing disposition).
"For purposes of this motion only, the United States assumes the truth of plaintiffs factual allegations. See Hwane Geum Joo v. Japan. 172 F.Supp.2d 52, 58 (D.D.C. 2001).
-5-