Court will weigh in on topic for first time in 30 years
WASHINGTON — The practice of opening government meetings with Christian prayer will be examined by the U.S. Supreme Court in its upcoming term.
The Court announced May 20 that it will hear arguments in Town of Greece v. Galloway, which will bring the issue of legislative prayer before the High Court for the first time in three decades.
The case arises out of the prayer practice of the Town Board of Greece, N.Y., which was found unconstitutional. Before 1999, the board’s public meetings began with a moment of silence; that year, they initiated the practice of inviting local clergy to offer an opening prayer. The prayer was listed in the meeting’s official minutes, but there was no formal policy regarding who was invited to give the prayer, the content of the prayer or any other aspect of the practice. The town supervisor typically thanked the prayer-giver and presented the individual with a plaque for being the town’s “chaplain of the month.”
Two residents sued the town, claiming the practice aligned the town with Christianity, thereby violating the First Amendment’s prohibition on government establishment of religion. After they first complained in 2007, the board added a few non-Christian clergy to the “Town Board Chaplain” list used to find individuals to deliver the prayer. But, according to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a substantial majority of the prayers between 1999 and 2010 “contained uniquely Christian language,” and the court found the prayer practice to be an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
This case brings the issue of legislative prayer before the Supreme Court for the first time since its 1983 Marsh v. Chambers decision. In that case, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska legislature’s practice of opening with a prayer offered by a state-employed chaplain. Rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge, the Court based its decision on historical accounts that showed legislative prayer was “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.” In Marsh, the Court noted that the chaplain’s prayers at issue were characterized as “nonsectarian,” “Judeo-Christian,” and with “elements of the American civil religion.” In the words of the Marsh decision, such prayers are “simply a tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.”
Baptist Joint Committee General Counsel K. Hollyn Hollman said, despite Marsh, the practice of official prayers at governmental meetings remains awkward at best, illustrating the point that just because something is constitutional does not make it right.
“A moment of silence before a board meeting is preferable,” Hollman said. “While the legislative prayer practice was upheld in Marsh, there has been a tendency to stretch that ruling’s boundaries in ways that undermine the expectation of government neutrality toward religion. The Court’s decision to hear this case provides an opportunity to clarify an aspect of religious liberty law that has become the subject of a great deal of litigation in recent years.”
Town of Greece v. Galloway will be heard during the Court’s 2013-2014 term, which begins in October.
From the June 2013 Report from the Capital. Click here for the next article.
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