Does it have a prayer?

National | Istook Amendment gains key support; hearings set for July | Bob Jones

The town of Edmond, Okla., has a hole in its city seal. There used to be a cross in that spot, reflecting the religious heritage so common to Middle America. But after losing a "religious establishment" lawsuit that cost the city nearly a quarter-million dollars to defend, that aspect of Edmond's history was expunged from the record. Rather than replace the cross with a more politically correct symbol, city leaders opted to leave its place empty-a silent witness to the courts' Orwellian attempts to sanitize the present by altering the past.

The secularists may wish they'd taken on a different town. Edmond, it turns out, lies in Oklahoma's fifth congressional district, which since 1992 has been represented by Republican Ernest Istook, a Mormon whose public policy advocacy puts him in political coalition with evangelicals. The crossing-out of Christianity in Edmond has only added fire to Mr. Istook's five-year campaign to protect religious expression from the secular thought police.