The New York Times reports that the U.S. Supreme Court agreed today to rule on a case in which a town (Greece, New York) mandated the saying of prayers before every town meeting (a town assembly dealing with local governance). As the Times reports;
For more than a decade starting in 1999, the town board began its public meetings with a prayer from a “chaplain of the month.” Town officials said that members of all faiths and atheists were welcome to give the opening prayer.
In practice, the federal appeals court in New York said, almost all of the chaplains were Christian.
“A substantial majority of the prayers in the record contained uniquely Christian language,” Judge Guido Calabresi wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. “Roughly two-thirds contained references to ‘Jesus Christ,’ ‘Jesus,’ ‘Your Son,’ or the ‘Holy Spirit.’”
Two town residents sued, saying the prayers ran afoul of the First Amendment’s prohibition of the government establishment of religion. The appeals court agreed. “The town’s prayer practice must be viewed as an endorsement of a particular religious viewpoint,” Judge Calabresi wrote.
In 1983, in Marsh v. Chambers, the Supreme Court upheld the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its legislative sessions with an invocation from a paid Presbyterian minister, saying that such ceremonies were “deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.”
This case seems like a loser to me; I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court (whose conservative members are not only in a majority, but who are religious) will overturn the lower court decision, allowing prayers. What they may do is simply specify that the prayers need not be Christian prayers, in which case Greece will simply have some watered-down invocations to the deity that don’t mention Jesus. Otherwise that opens the possibility for—God forbid—Jewish or Muslim prayers.
In reality, what the Supreme Court should do is simply get rid of the prayers, which violate the First Amendment. “Historical precedent” of having legislative prayers is no excuse for their continuance, and should be overturned. After all, you can’t begin the school day with prayers, and legislators, like schoolchildren, are a captive audience. The “tradition” defense has always mystified me.
Legislators’ insistence on public and “official” prayer, as opposed to private worship, has always mystified me. Every legislator can pray on his or her own. This is merely an attempt to try to force religion into the government. The harm done thereby is twofold: it starts us down the slippery slope to a theocracy, and it dispossesses those who aren’t either Christian or are believers. There is no upside to these prayers—none. Prayer as a part of governmental business should be eliminated everywhere in this country.
Nevertheless, even Congress has an official chaplain who opens each session of the House of Representatives with a prayer. It’s not likely that Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito will affirm the lower court decision. They’ll just allow non-secular prayer, which is still a violation of the Constitution.
You don’t suppose the House might get rid of its chaplain as a cost-saving measure, do you? I hear we have a deficit.
No, I don’t think so either.
Praying on his or her own doesn’t pander to potential voters. There’s nothing mysterious here at all.
As a former Greater Rochesterian, it saddens me to see this crap in the neighborhood of my home town. That area has its problems but I didn’t think this was one of them.
Instead of “god save this honorable court!”, maybe SCOTUS should kick things off with “may reason and logic dictate our decisions!”
That’s how they do it on Vulcan.
BTW, I have been a witness twice, juror once, and prospective juror three times in the Harris County TX courts and have never seen a bible; and all oaths were simply done en masse with raised hands “swear or affirm”, and no mention of God. And this is in the second largest court jurisdiction in the US, with four million citizens.
So that’s at least some good news. And from Texas!
Actually, Thomas will argue that State religion is constitutional, but he’ll be the only Justice to take that stand.
I hope he actually does say something like that because then it opens the door to ask what other ideologies should be sanctioned and controlled by the state — then the fun ensues 🙂
He has already argued that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not apply to States. He says the Establishment Clause was intended to protect the rights of the States against federal interference. The Supreme Court has decided that the Tenth Amendment does apply to the Establishment Clause, however, which means there can be no State religion. But Thomas still voices his dissent.
Sorry, I meant the Fourteenth, not the Tenth Amendment.
Right, but the leaders (and voters) don’t learn anything from private prayer. The point of making it public is to smoke our the conscientious non-Christians who decline to participate.
Argh. “Smoke out”.
Given the make-up of SCOTUS, this case doesn’t stand a prayer.
What I do not understand is the reasoning that allows non-denominational prayer. It basically says you cannot have a christian prayer because that might offend people of other faiths. Why is it okay to offend atheists by having any type of prayer?
Because America, that’s why.
The claim is that prayer has a legitimate ceremonial, solemnizing role, that is not an establishment as long as no particular faith is endorsed.
This is one of those tortured justifications that would be offensive to Christians if they looked past anything but the “We win!” outcome.
On the other hand, it probably saved us from a Constitutional ammendment allow establishment, because not having In God We Trust on our coins would be the worst thing ever, and drastic action would have to be taken.
People in the United States, on both the pro and con sides of the separation of church and state issue, generally have a false idea of what brought about the religious stance given in the First Amendment. It’s long been a chestnut of US History that the Establishment Clause forbidding a national church was the product of tolerance and foresight. In the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, author Stephen Waldman presents quite a different picture. The Congregationalists hated the Methodists, the Methodists hated the Presbyterians, the Anglicans (who became the Episcopalians to shed their royalist associations with the Church of England) hated the Baptists (who could be jailed for preaching in Virginia) and almost everyone hated the Quakers and Catholics who were lucky to have states of their own (Pennsylvania and Maryland, respectively) and Jews were not held in very high esteem, either. Waldman reports that the sentiment ran so high, that some would rather see a “Mahometan” or a “heathen” occupy public office rather than let the despised papists or Puritans have the upper hand. It wasn’t enlightened thinking that gave us the Establishment Clause; it was hatred, bigotry and fear of the “other” – just like now.
Yeah, those were the good old days when the faithists were at each other’s throats and too busy to worry about us heathens. Ecumenism is allowing the faithists to run wild.
How times have changed. Now the Supreme Court consists of six papists and three Jews. Not a decent Christian in sight.
Waldman is one of the founders of Beliefnet and I take his interpretation of the history with a grain of salt. It’s a reasonable though not particularly deep explanation of why the establishment clause was accepted by the general populace, but Madison, Jefferson, and the others who contributed to our founding documents had their moments of innovative forward thinking. They were also flawed men of the times, many of them slave owners, and made some serious mistakes like the Electoral College. But historical realism should not deny the genuinely important breakthroughs in human progress they contributed. Jefferson in the letter to the Danbury Baptists:
‘Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their “legislature” should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.’
Sounds pretty high-minded to me. Those enlightenment thinkers did take this stuff seriously.
Also, prior to the 14th amendment, the Establishment clause did not prevent the establishment of official State churches, but most state constitutions forbid such establishment, even when one religion predominated in the state. The importance of the U.S. Bill of Rights as a role model is significant here.
Yes, exactly. Jefferson was not motivated by sectarian hatred.
In Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330 (1983), the Supreme Court (with quite different personnel) carved out a “safe harbor” for legislative prayer that is “inclusive” and “non-sectarian.”
In this case, there is a slim chance that a 5-4 majority of the current Supreme Court justices will find that the taxpayer plaintiffs have standing, and that the town council’s explicitly Christian invocations fall outside the safe harbor and are unconstitutional.
However, it is more likely that a majority on the Supreme Court will take the cowardly way out, find that the plaintiffs did not have “standing” to sue in the first place, and therefore avoid reaching the merits. Supposedly, the standing requirements are less stringent when taxpayers sue for Establishment Clause violations by municipal government bodies (distinguished from state and federal legislative bodies). But in light of the mess that Justice Alito created regarding “standing” in his plurality opinion in Hein v. FFRF, 127 S.Ct. 2553, 168 L.Ed.2d 424 (2007)(a case challenging the White House Office of Faith-Bsaed and Community Initiatives), who knows?
For a possible preview of what the Supreme Court may do in the Town of Greece case, look at the majority opinion by the 7th Circuit panel in Chicago in Hinrichs v. Bosma, 506 F.3d 584 (7th Cir. 2007), http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1467713.html, and contrast that opinion with the excellent dissent by Judge Diane Wood. That case also involved explicitly sectarian, Christian prayers (opening the sessions of the Indiana House of Representatives). But the taxpayer plaintiffs ultimately lost on standing grounds, and the District Court’s injunction was reversed.
They’ll just allow non-secular prayer, which is still a violation of the Constitution.
I suspect that should be “non-sectarian” prayer.
What I REALLY don’t understand is why any Christian would want to endorse any kind of public prayer. If memory serves, Jesus got VERY snarky about people who pray in public for everyone to see, saying, “You have your reward.” (Being notices praying, that is) I think he then went on to say they should only pray quietly be themselves, in their rooms. Dr. Coyne, as a fellow atheist, you’ve read the bible more recently than I have…isn’t that more or less Jesus’ attitude?
*noticed
oy!
Matthew 6:5
“And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”
But the bible contradicts itself so often maybe this doesn’t represent Christ’s opinion at all. On the other hand I used to love quoting this to my great Aunt when she was being obnoxiously sanctimonious.
But schoolchildren are generally more sensible and mature than legislators. In the words of David Byrne, “As we get older and stop making sense…”
The selfsame Mr. Byrne, in the selfsame song, describes the current state of SCOTUS and predicts the outcome of this and similar cases:
…oy vey…
[Tongue very firmly in cheek:]
Well, they could mandate use of the Agnostic’s Prayer from Roger Zelazny’s novel Creatures of Light and Darkness–
“Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to ensure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.”
(Taken from the Wikipedia article on Zelazny’s novel.)
Alternatively, they could simply ask whether or not they’re just jerking off.
b&
!! I’d check C-span. You might find that congresscritters, at least, treat legislative floor sessions as somewhat optional. Also unlike children, legislators can quit; its their job, not a legal requirement. So I don’t think the “captive audience” argument works well here.
Having said that, IMO it certainly gives the imprimatur of the state to any prayer given and should not survive a 1st amendment challenge just because of that. Also IMO, it doesn’t make it constitutional to invite all religions and atheists to give the benediction in turn, because the state should not be establishing any of them – establishing them all equally doesn’t cut it.
I also agree with you that, sadly, the likely outcome of this case is SCOTUS supporting prayer in some form or another.
So were public executions.
That’s an excellent point, and Professor Ceiling Cat declares it the winner of the thread.
My first! I feel greatly honored :-).
And you get a certificate and everything! Congratulations!
Ha ha congrats – I was going to say slavery but I was too lazy to post 🙂
Matthew 6:6 “When you pray, go into your room. Close the door and pray to your Father, who can’t be seen. He will reward you. Your Father sees what is done secretly.”
I’d like to see a principled christian sue because public prayer is actually unchristian.
Ahhh damn, Jon you got to it before me!
If “Historical precedent” were an excuse, remember that slavery used to be legal.
Yeah I thought that too.
As a woman I’d be tempted to say that I wasn’t good enough to pray and I needed a man to do it for me so I was uncomfortable being asked to pray in public. You know, just to kind of make it worse.
I am not very familiar with the voting tendencies of US Supreme Court judges, but I find it hard to believe that their personal religion plays that big a part in their legal decisions. For example, the current Chief Justice of India, Altamas Kabir, is a Muslim, but that has not prevented him from establishing himself as a fighter for the legal rights of LGBTs in India.
I don’t claim to be a legal historian or Constitutional scholar, but my personal recollection is that up until about 1980 or so, Supreme Court justices could be more or less relied on to keep their personal beliefs separate from their legal opinions.
Starting with Ronald Reagan, however, conservative Presidents have made a point of nominating justices with strong religious convictions with the specific expectation that they’ll bring those convictions to bear on overturning Roe v. Wade (the decision that legalized abortion in the US). Judges whose scruples prevent them from mixing religion and law are at a disadvantage in the nomination and confirmation process, at least when Republicans are in power. So the current Court comes up short on such scruples.
Again, this is not a rigorous analysis but just my own subjective perception of the direction things seem to have gone during my lifetime.
Since the town is called Greece, and in accordance with ancient tradition, shouldn’t they really be praying to Zeus?
(I’ve always thought the Olympian gods were far more fun – and far more democratic for worshippers in a choose-your-own-god sort of way – than the miserable monotheistic religions).
The great advantage of polytheism is that there’s no pressure on anyone to pray to the Boss Dog (who is generally a rather forbidding character with some very unpleasant character traits, and clearly doesn’t actually give a shit for anyone), as there are so many specialists on the team. It works for the Hindus and the Catholics, and it never stopped working for the Greeks. I would bet that in ancient times the temples of Zeus, while sometimes magnificent edifices, were generally poorly attended.
Interesting you should mention Hinduism. The NZ Herald recently ran an article on the different denominations response to the law change legalising gay marriage – the Hindu response was:
Hindus … have left the issue to individual priests.
“There is no central divinely determined authority to dictate to temples or priests or indeed any individual what is right and what is wrong,” said [a] Hindu Council spokesman…
“In accordance with this thinking, we support the view that marriage should be under the purview of civil law rather than any kind of real or imaginary static and un-evolving ‘divine law’.”
That’s not far off what most of this list might say, I think.
I live in the Valley of the Sun, in the city of Tempe, on Apollo Avenue, and my roof is covered in solar power collectors.
I assure you, the most ancient form of religious practice — Sun worship — is alive and well today. Even amongst atheists.
Cheers,
b&
Well this atheist was worshipping it (along with Neptune) every free day last summer – which has only just ended (I’m on the underneath bit of the world). And the sea has been warm the entire time. A perfect summer, best we’ve ever had (except for the farmers who were having a drought).
I think governments can learn from each other, and a good reason not to let religion and government mix is a country like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Good strong theocracies that any state religion will lead too eventually.
“Town officials said that members of all faiths and atheists were welcome to give the opening prayer.”
What the hell would an atheist’s prayer look like?
“Everyone here has a life; let’s use the time to get some work done.”
“Let’s take a moment to thank all the people who have helped [our district] deal with [most recent problem]…”
Or if you’re feeling a bit snarky: “Thank God none of these other beliefs are real.”
“deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.” — along with other traditional endeavors like slavery and killing native people. Just because something has been done for an extended period doesn’t enshrine it as either right or legal.
“The “tradition” defense has always mystified me….There is no upside to these prayers—none. ”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“So were public executions.”
“If “Historical precedent” were an excuse, remember that slavery used to be legal.”
“Just because something has been done for an extended period doesn’t enshrine it as either right or legal.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The argument is not that tradition is sufficiently important that it is the only relevant principle and should override all other considerations. The argument is that tradition isn’t entirely worthless. That counters the argument that “There is no upside to these prayers.”