WASHINGTON – Missouri Baptist Convention General Legal Counsel Michael Whitehead and his son, Jonathan, co-wrote the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s (ERLC) brief in defense of prayer for the city of Greece, N.Y., in its case argued recently at the U.S. Supreme Court. The Whiteheads, who are members of Abundant Life Baptist Church in Lee’s Summit, also attended the oral arguments on the case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“While some justices were tempted to parse the words of prayers, the attitude at the end of the day seemed to be: ‘Let’s leave the parsing to the parsons,’” said Michael Whitehead. “While some justices thought it necessary for government policy to instruct prayer-givers to keep their prayer terms ‘nonsectarian,’ all the justices seemed to agree that it is impossible to get every religious observer to agree with a single definition of ‘nonsectarian.’”
The Whiteheads are lawyers in private practice in the Kansas City area. Michael Whitehead was general counsel from 1990 to 1995 for the ERLC (then the Christian Life Commission).
While at the U.S. Supreme Court Jonathan Whitehead, a graduate of the Harvard University Law School, was admitted as a new member to the U.S. Supreme Court bar and is now eligible to present cases before the high court.
