A federal judge in New York's Western District, disagreeing with recent church-state jurisprudence, ruled late last week that sectarian prayers – those that reflect specific religious beliefs – to open legislative sessions in the town of Greece, NY, are acceptable. Going even further, Charles Siragusa writes that any policy that would instruct that invocations should be "open and generic", would amount to an "impermissible attempt by government to control prayer."
In his 83-page opinion, the Judge concedes that his reading of Supreme Court precedent [Marsh v Chambers] differs from other recent appellate rulings.
It is clear to this Court that Marsh does not require that legislative prayer be non-sectarian. To the contrary, Marsh upheld the constitutionality of legislative prayer, thereby specifically carving out a unique exception to the Lemon test, based primarily if not exclusively on the long history of legislative prayer in Congress, which is often overtly sectarian….
The Court also disagrees with Plaintiffs' contention that the Town must, or even can, instruct potential prayer-givers that prayers should be "inclusive and ecumenical.". . . . The Court finds that the policy requested by Plaintiffs would… impose a state-created orthodoxy. In this regard, the Court respectfully disagrees with the Fourth Circuit's decision in Turner.
New York is in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, not the 4th. Still, this ruling reads as something of a shot across the bow, a broad rejection of conventional views of the law with regard to legislative prayer. It may give the 2nd Circuit a chance to weigh in on what looks to be a growing area of judicial controversy.
