Many liberals, libertarians and conservatives, to say nothing of atheists, probably were startled to see this recent headline: “Obama administration backs prayer at local government meetings.”

As if these words didn’t scream loudly enough, some Los Angeles Times copy editor felt it necessary to explain their significance: “In a potentially far-reaching case on separation of church and state, the Obama administration and Republican lawmakers tell the Supreme Court they support easing limits on prayers at meetings.”

There’s something fundamentally American in this political equation joining curious bedfellows. The customary trope is that the Constitution prohibits prayer in government meetings, something it never did when written, and only has after repeated bad re-interpretations by misguided Supreme Court justices.

Since 1789, Congress has opened with prayer and paid chaplains to pray with and for their government employers. The day after passing the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom, Congress asked President George Washington to declare a national day of thanksgiving. He did with what seems quite like a prayer: “Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God to obey His will to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor … we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplication to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations.”

It’s difficult to reconcile these and countless other similar official acts with an intention to keep an arm’s length between religious expression and government actions.

Those who find religious expression at odds with the Constitution get it wrong. The First Amendment’s prohibition of the “establishment of religion” was intended to protect churches from the federal government, not governments from churches.

Thomas Jefferson’s letter to a Connecticut Baptist church described a “wall of separation” between church and state to explain that the new national government had no authority to establish a national church to impose on locals. States already had established state churches. The Constitution protected them from the national government.

Years of bad Supreme Court extrapolation changed that original intent into a prohibition the founders would not recognize. The Constitution from Day 1 did not bar religious expressions in government. Quite to the contrary.

In 1854, a House Judiciary Committee Report declared: “At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged… . That was the religion of the founders of the republic, and they expected it to remain the religion of their descendants.”

Apart from government’s legitimate encouragement of religious expression, there is something else latter-day religious prohibitionists seem to get wrong, although it isn’t often discussed when this topic is broached. They seem to get prayer wrong.

If you’re in the presence of someone praying to a god you don’t think exists, where’s the harm? He’s talking to himself. You may be offended, but if being offended were all that’s required to impose prohibitions, imagine the length of the law needed to cover all those contingencies. If you want to draft that bill, start with yours truly being offended if someone else is offended when I offer a prayer at a government meeting. How do you outlaw that?

Or, if you’re in the presence of someone praying to a nonexistent god to do something you object to, what’s to keep you from praying to the God who does exist to ignore that guy and listen to you, instead?

But perhaps critics’ most overlooked and misunderstood aspect of prayer is that, at least according to my faith, we don’t pray to change God. We pray to conform to His will, much like George Washington. On second thought, those who object may very well understand this. What could be more frightening than to oppose God’s will and have others praying that it come to pass?

But we are getting a bit into the long weeds here. The fundamental point is that opening government meetings in prayer is utterly American, without question historically justified and, even if you disagree with the prayer, probably harmless. As a devout praying person, I can attest to being in the presence of many horrid public prayers that sounded more like enumerated wish lists, or just plain bad theology. To date I’ve experienced no harm, as far as I can tell. As for those who pray wrongly, you’ll have to ask them.

Prayers to phony gods have no effect. And what would be the point in complaining about prayers that conform to the true God’s will? To oppose God’s will certainly is more problematic than to listen to a prayer you disagree with.

It is entirely reasonable that, as the Times observed, Republicans and President Obama, “found something to agree on: Town councils should be allowed to open their meetings with a Christian prayer.”