By Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service with BJC Staff Reports
The town at the heart of May’s Supreme Court decision approving sectarian prayer at local government meetings has adopted new rules that may exclude atheist invocations.
On August 19, Greece, N.Y., adopted new rules for who can deliver a prayer or invocation before its public meetings. Those rules include “religious clergy” and “religious assemblies,” but they make no mention of the nonreligious, such as atheists and humanists.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Town of Greece v. Galloway that sectarian prayers before local government meetings do not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as long as there is no discrimination in determining who may give them.
“If this policy does, in effect, bar the nonreligious from delivering invocations, it would represent a disappointing step backward for the Town of Greece,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, president of the Center For Inquiry, a First Amendment watchdog organization that promotes humanism.
Brian Marianetti, attorney for the Town of Greece, said he did not know if atheists would be permitted to give an invocation under the rules.
“I can’t say one way or another,” he said. Each speaker will be “decided on a case-by-case basis.”
The rules, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by an atheist group, also state a city clerk will compile an annual list of churches, synagogues, temples and mosques from which representatives may be drawn to open public meetings with a prayer or invocation. It makes no mention of any type of assembly of nonbelievers.
One local atheist gave an invocation in Greece before the new rules were adopted. Dan Courtney, a member of the Atheist Community of Rochester, N.Y., opened the town’s July 15 meeting.
Meanwhile, a group of county commissioners in Florida is testing the Supreme Court decision by banning atheists outright from delivering an invocation before local public meetings.
Five members of the Brevard County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously August 20 against permitting a local atheist from delivering a prayer or invocation before their public meetings. They also voted to limit remarks from nonreligious people to the “public comments” section of their meetings.
In a letter to David Williamson, founder of the Central Florida Freethought Community, the board wrote, “The prayer is delivered during the ceremonial portion of the county’s meeting, and typically invokes guidance for the County Commission from the highest spiritual authority, a higher authority which a substantial body of Brevard constituents believe to exist.”
The Central Florida Freethought Community says on its website that it is not a proponent of prayers or invocations before public meetings, but it will seek opportunities to give them in order to test the Greece ruling. The group has scheduled invocations in five other Florida locations, according to its website.
From the September 2014 Report From the Capital. Click here to read the next article.
