Thread: Surpreme Court: Prayer is allowed to open government meetings

Surpreme Court: Prayer is allowed to open government meetings

• By The Associated Press
• Posted May 5, 2014 at 10:21 a.m.
• WASHINGTON — Prayers that open town council meetings do not violate the Constitution even if they routinely stress Christianity, a divided Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The court said in 5-4 decision that the content of the prayers is not significant as long as they do not denigrate non-Christians or proselytize.

The ruling by the court's conservative majority was a victory for the town of Greece, N.Y., outside of Rochester. The Obama administration sided with the town.

In 1983, the court upheld an opening prayer in the Nebraska legislature and said that prayer is part of the nation's fabric, not a violation of the First Amendment. Monday's ruling was consistent with the earlier one.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said the prayers are ceremonial and in keeping with the nation's traditions.

"The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers," Kennedy said.

Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court's four liberal justices, said, "I respectfully dissent from the Court's opinion because I think the Town of Greece's prayer practices violate that norm of religious equality — the breathtakingly generous constitutional idea that our public institutions belong no less to the Buddhist or Hindu than to the Methodist or Episcopalian."

Kagan said the case differs significantly from the 1983 decision because "Greece's town meetings involve participation by ordinary citizens, and the invocations given — directly to those citizens — were predominantly sectarian in content."

A federal appeals court in New York ruled that Greece violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity.

From 1999 through 2007, and again from January 2009 through June 2010, every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation.

In 2008, after residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens complained, four of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians, including a Jewish layman, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha'i congregation.

A town employee each month selected clerics or lay people by using a local published guide of churches. The guide did not include non-Christian denominations, however. The appeals court found that religious institutions in the town of just under 100,000 people are primarily Christian, and even Galloway and Stephens testified they knew of no non-Christian places of worship there.

The two residents filed suit and a trial court ruled in the town's favor, finding that the town did not intentionally exclude non-Christians. It also said that the content of the prayer was not an issue because there was no desire to proselytize or demean other faiths.

But a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that even with the high court's 1983 ruling, the practice of having one Christian prayer after another amounted to the town's endorsement of Christianity.

Kennedy, however, said judges should not be involved in evaluating the content of prayer because it could lead to legislatures requiring "chaplains to redact the religious content from their message in order to make it acceptable for the public sphere."

He added, "Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it may prescribe a religious orthodoxy."

Kennedy himself was the author an opinion in 1992 that held that a Christian prayer delivered at a high school graduation did violate the Constitution. The justice said Monday there are differences between the two situations, including the age of the audience and the fact that attendees at the council meeting may step out of the room if they do not like the prayer.

Kennedy and his four colleagues in the majority all are Catholic. They are: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In her dissent, Kagan said the council meeting prayers are unlike those said to open sessions of Congress and state legislatures, where the elected officials are the intended audience. In Greece, "the prayers there are directed squarely at the citizens," she said. Kagan was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Of the four, three are Jewish and Sotomayor is Catholic.

Kagan also noted what she described as the meetings' intimate setting, with 10 or so people sitting in front of the town's elected and top appointed officials. Children and teenagers are likely to be present, she said.

The case is Greece v. Galloway, 12-696

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1. Supreme Court: If you don't like it, leave the room ...
   
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   54 mins ago - supreme court: If you don't like it, leave the room. ... advice for atheists and others who object to sectarian prayers before government meetings . . .

Supreme Court: If you don't like it, leave the room




Justices allow prayer at town's council meetings

Members of minority faiths, as well as atheists, responded with palpable anger, saying the Supreme Court has set them apart as second-class citizens.FULL STORY

• Photos: High court who's who
• Justices walk a tricky line

SUPREME COURT DECISION ON PRAYER IS A DISASTER, NOT A DELIVERANCE

By Attorney Michael Peroutka
May 21, 2014
NewsWithViews.com

Many Christians and Christian groups and even churches and church leaders are celebrating the recent Supreme Court ruling in a case known as Town Board of Greece, New York v. Galloway.

It seems to be the conventional wisdom among these folks that the Supreme Court did a “good thing” in holding that the Town Board of Greece (and by implication, other legislative bodies) may pray before the commencement of their public functions.

Given the totality of the circumstances, however, I believe that this conventional wisdom is anything but wise. In fact, I believe it to be the essence of foolishness.

Let me explain why.

The Establishment Clause, which is the Constitutional provision at the heart of this case, is comprised of only ten words. Here is what it says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,”

So, the legal question before the court was whether this clause had been violated. In other words, did the offering of prayer by the Town Board of Greece equate to Congress making a law, the effect of which is to establish an official United States religion?

Well, the answer seems to clearly be “NO” for at least two very simple reasons:

1) The Town Board of Greece, New York, is NOT the “Congress”; and,
2) A prayer offered at the Town Board meeting is not a “law.” It is simply a prayer.

As I say, if you just read the Establishment Clause and consider the facts of the case, the answer is quite simple. In fact, there really is no case. The prayer at the Town Board meeting in Greece is not a violation of the First Amendment.

In order to find that a prayer in New York (or anywhere else) is a violation of the Establishment Clause, the first thing you have to conclude is that the Town Board of Greece, New York is, in legal contemplation, the Congress of the United States.

Crazy, you say?

I agree. But this is exactly the conclusion the Supreme Court maintains through a “legal fiction” they call the “Incorporation Doctrine”.

Now, assuming that anyone would believe that the Town Board of Greece, New York, in the contemplation of the Framers of the Constitution, is Congress, you still have another obvious reality that you must cover up with some blue smoke and mirrors. Namely, you need to employ another “legal fiction” to conclude that a prayer offered by a Town Board member is, in legal contemplation, a law made by the Congress.

Again, you say this is crazy.

Again, I agree.

Yet this, dear friend, is the essence of what has, for sixty-plus years, been sold to the public as First Amendment jurisprudence.

Rather than examine the simple text of the Establishment Clause, (remember: it is only ten words long) what the Supreme Court, and other federal courts, have done for more than six decades, is to invent (and reinvent) what they call “tests” and “legal fictions” for determining whether certain actions on the part of persons or organizations violate the Establishment Clause.

For example, in 1971, the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman introduced what became known as the “Lemon test.” This test invoked phrases like “secular purpose” and “primary effect” and “excessive entanglement.” In later cases like Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Court reinvented its test to examine degrees of “coercion.”

We can think of these “tests” that the court has confabulated just as we might think of the “smoke and mirrors” that the “great and powerful Wizard of Oz” employed to hide what was going on behind the curtain.

Essentially, the “great and powerful Wizards” on the Supreme Court, along with their fellow henchmen on the lesser federal courts, have used these phony “tests,” along with “legal fictions” to hide the fact that they are playing God.

These complicated, irrational, and evolving First Amendment “tests” are a farce and a snare. They are like the Wizard’s distractions and are used to fool us into thinking he has powers that he does not have.

So, why do I say that the happy church leaders are foolish and the court has NOT done a good thing in deciding in favor of the Town Board of Greece, New York?

I say this because the Supreme Court ruling in this case is still based upon phony “tests” and the “legal fictions” rather than the actual text of the Constitution. In fact, in this case the court has invented yet another “test” in order to justify its ruling in favor or the prayer. Briefly stated, the court has invented a “ceremonial test.” The Court has justified its ruling by declaring that if a prayer is simply “ceremonial” and “traditional” and intended to lend to the “solemnity” of the occasion, then it may be allowable.

In other words, if a prayer merely continues a ceremonial tradition and is not really intended to, nor likely to, convict anybody of the truth of its content, then it can be allowed.

Essentially, what the court is allowing are prayers that are vain.

Have these happy church leaders forgotten that God’s Word in Exodus 20:7 forbids us to take the Name of the Lord God in vain?

Don’t they see that the court will allow you to pray to the Lord God so long as you are doing it vainly and sinfully?

Don’t they see that the court, through phony tests and legal fictions, has taken a clause from the Constitution that forbids the government from establishing a religion and used it to establish the “religion” of atheism?

I hope and I pray that before all our liberties have vanished, we wake up to the supreme deception of the Supreme Court.

The Constitution is a clear and simply understood document. Those who hate liberty try to convince us that it is so complicated that it requires their supreme expertise.

Let’s forget the tests and read the text.

Learn more about your Constitution with Michael Anthony Peroutka and his “Institute on the Constitution” and receive your free gift.

© 2014 Michael Peroutka - All Rights Reserved

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Michael Anthony Peroutka Esq. is a former Presidential candidate and co-founder of Institute on the Constitution (IOTC) an educational outreach of his law firm that presents the founders “American View” of law and government. IOTC has produced thousands of graduates in all 50 states with a full understanding of the Biblical principles on which those founding documents are based.

Michael is a graduate of Loyola College and the University of Baltimore School of Law.
Contact:

Email: Michael@theAmericanView.com
Twitter: @theamericanview
Facebook: facebook.com/InstituteontheConstitution
Website: Constitution IOTC

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Town of Greece Case Returns the Establishment Clause To Its Original Meaning
Last week I reported on Justice Thomas’ citation of my work in his concurring opinion in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a widely-discussed decision on the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. This week, I’ll put the decision in context.

The meaning of the Establishment Clause (”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”) has long been debated. Here are some of the hypotheses advanced:

* The Founders created a “Christian nation” in which the federal government could promote Christianity. The Establishment Clause assured, however, that the federal government would not favor any denomination of Christians over any other. This was the view of the great 19th century Supreme Court Justice and law professor Joseph Story.

* The Establishment Clause was adopted principally to protect the states from federal interference with their own established churches. This is Justice Thomas’ view

* The Establishment Clause was adopted to protect the states from federal interference with their own established churches, but also to require the federal government to treat all religions equally. The Clause did not, however, place atheism or agnosticism on a par with religion. This conclusion is called “non-preferentialism.”

* The Clause not only protected the states from federal interference with their own established churches, but also required the government to treat all religious opinions, including atheism and agnosticism, equally. This formulation is called “neutrality,” and former Justice David Souter was one of its exponents.

* The Clause required the government to lean over backwards to avoid any entanglement or appearance of favoritism for religion. This is called “strict separation.”

There have been various modifications and blending of the views listed above, including a rather incoherent version called “accommodation,” a doctrine followed late in the 20th century by some of the more conservative justices.

Beginning in the 1940s (although with roots earlier), the Supreme Court issued a series of “strict separation” cases and imposed them on the states as well as well as on the federal government. It soon became evident that strict separation was both impractical and contrary to the actual meaning of the Establishment Clause. Accordingly, in the 1970s the Court began a long journey from strict separation, wandering through “neutrality” and “accomodation,” and toward non-preferentialism.

The Town of Greece case seems to complete this journey. Justice Thomas’ concurrence aside, all the opinions—majority and dissent—are squarely non-preferentialist. All acknowledged that the Town could sponsor prayers before Town Board meetings. The writer of the dissent, Justice Kagan, even affirmed explicitly her support for civic prayer. The only real dispute was over whether the Town had treated all religions fairly when selecting clergy to perform the invocation. The majority thought the Town had been fair, at least on balance. The dissent thought it had unfairly favored Christianity over Judaism and other religions adhered to by citizens of the Town. But that was a dispute over the facts, not over legal doctrine.

Several years ago, I wrote an article for the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal entitled The Original Meaning of the Establishment Clause. As someother scholars had concluded before me, I found that non-preferentialism was, in fact, the intent of those who adopted the Establishment Clause: both protection of state established churches and equal congressional treatment of all religions.

This conclusion seems to be a little different from that of Justice Thomas: I believe the Clause was, in addition to a protection for federalism, a positive guarantee to all religious believers. Perhaps this is why Justice Thomas cited my writings on the Necessary and Proper Clause rather than those on the Establishment Clause!

In any event, with the Town of Greece case the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence returns to the original meaning. Whether that jurisprudence should be imposed on the states is another matter, and Justice Thomas may well be correct that it should not.

That last question involves considering (in my opinion) not the Establishment Clause, but the “incorporation doctrine”—the doctrine by which the Supreme Court imposes nearly all of the Bill of Rights on state governments as well as on the federal government. The incorporation doctrine is a topic for another time.

http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014...aily+Digest%29