AP Political Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - Indiana House leaders will seek private donations in their efforts to overturn a federal judge's ruling restricting opening prayers in the body's Statehouse chambers, House Speaker Brian Bosma said Tuesday.

The money would help defray costs of paying a private law firm tax dollars to defend a case set to be heard by a panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago on Thursday. Bosma also said that in a rare instance, the U.S. Department of Justice is weighing in on a legislative prayer case and will argue on the side of the speaker.

&#8220It is my understanding that they and members of Congress are quite concerned about the impact of this case on the 225-year practice of free prayer in Congress," said Bosma, R-Indianapolis. He said he has heard from hundreds of state and local officials from Indiana and other states who have encouraged a strong defense of the prayers.

Bosma wants a three-member panel of the appeals court to reverse a ruling by U.S. District Judge David Hamilton that said the House could not formally open with prayers that endorse any particular religion.

Hamilton ruled in November that invocations offered in the state House could not mention Jesus Christ or use Christian terms such as savior because they amount to state endorsement of a religion.

A panel of the 7th Circuit voted 2-1 last spring to deny Bosma's request to temporarily lift the ban while the case was appealed. But the appeals court said the case deserved review because it involved internal proceedings of a legislative body and raised important federalism concerns.

Bosma has said that an overwhelming majority of House members and the public believed Hamilton was overreaching and interfering with the internal practices of a co-equal branch of government.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana challenged the prayer practices on behalf of four Christians who said the tradition of usually Christian prayers offended them.

Ken Falk, the ACLU of Indiana's legal director, has said the prayers violate a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court ruling permitting only nonsectarian prayer before a legislative session.

But Bosma said Tuesday that there is strong disagreement among legal scholars about the interpretation of that ruling. The House policy encouraged prayers to be ecumenical, but Bosma said he refused to tell clergy or lay people what they could say in prayers at the podium.

&#8220I think that's the fundamental question here: Who decides how an individual prays on the floor of the House - a federal court judge or our 189-year tradition of praying in accordance with one's conscience and heart?" Bosma said.

He said clergy of non-Christian faiths also had delivered opening prayers in the past. But of 53 such prayers during the 2005 session, 41 were given by clergy identified with Christian churches and at least 29 mentioned Jesus Christ.

An attorney from the Washington-based law firm of Winston & Strawn will argue on behalf of Bosma's appeal.

The Indiana attorney general's office represented the House before the district court and remains part of the defense team, but the private firm specializes in First Amendment cases before appeals courts, Bosma said.

The firm has been paid at least $67,000 in tax money from the Indiana House budget so far, Bosma said.

But he said House staff was creating a way for people to make private donations for a case he predicted ultimately would be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.