SCOTUS takes on government prayer

[RachelB]

http://www.scotusblog.com/2013/05/court ... rce=feedly

Returning for the first time in three decades to the constitutionality of saying prayers at the opening of a government meeting, the Supreme Court on Monday took on a case involving Town Board sessions in the upstate New York community named Greece, a city of about 100,000 people. For years, it followed the practice of having local clergy — mostly leaders of Christian congregations — recite prayers to start Town Board public meetings.

...

With two local residents challenging the prayer ritual, the [second] Circuit Court concluded that — on the specific facts of this case alone — the recitation by clergy had the effect of aligning the town government officially with a particular faith — Christianity. The Circuit Court stressed that it was not ruling that a local government could never open its meetings with prayers or a religious invocation, nor was it adopting a specific test that would allow prayer in theory but make it impossible in reality.

What it did rule, the Circuit Court said, was that “a legislative prayer practice that, however well-intentioned, conveys to a reasonable objective observer under the totality of the circumstances an official affiliation with a particular religion, violates the clear command of the [First Amendment's] Establishment Clause.â€

It emphasized that, in the situation in Greece, New York, the overall impression of the practice was that it was dominated by Christian clergy and specific expressions of Christian beliefs, and that the town officials took no steps to try to dispel that impression.

The Supreme Court’s agreement to review the decision might be interpreted as an indication that the Justices could be preparing to make a major pronouncement on religion in the public sphere, but it also might be understood as an intent to focus solely on the specific facts of the practice as it unfolded in this one community.

I will be interested to see how this plays out. The Court hasn't commented explicitly on church/state relations in a while.

[HoneyBunny]

Fingers crossed here. This will speak volumes. Let's have a success here, then take on the tax exempt status of religious groups and churches.

[thoughtful]

Fingers crossed here. This will speak volumes. Let's have a success here, then take on the tax exempt status of religious groups and churches.

I hope so, but it is scary.

Two other threads on this were merged already -- mods might want to include this first one, as well.