Prayer has rightly been banished from public schools for more than half a century, but in Pennsylvania’s statehouse and other houses of American government, the supposedly sacrosanct wall between church and state remains porous, sometimes with divisive results. Prayerful invocations, oaths sworn on the Bible (or in Rep. Johnson-Harrell’s case, the Koran), and references to God are common, if not routine. When the deity being referenced is rooted in Judeo-Christian belief, and presented as a sort of homogenized, even secularized spiritual entity, the moment usually passes with little fuss. It is, after all, a custom.