Us Supreme Court Judicially Blesses Sectarian Prayer

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Freedom From Religion Foundation response:

http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/20595-ffrf-announces-%E2%80%98nothing-fails-like-prayer-award%E2%80%99-contest

 

[centauri]

What lunacy.

This is truly an asinine decision, but fully expected from the knuckle dragging cretins that sit on the court.

Christians have been using official events, paid for by taxpayers, as billboards for their delusions for decades.

The court has affirmed that "tradition" trumps the spirit of the Constitution.

Jesus will now be jammed into public meetings with even more abandon, under the guise of popular tradition.

I recommend they sacrifice a goat prior to all council meetings.

All hail the ancient tribal god that morphed into a trinity.

Of course, Christians will continue to claim they're being persecuted.

The perverted blood cult still rules this country, sporting their hypocrisy right in our faces.

Amerika, marching backwards and proud of it.

[DrNo]

This is truly unbelievable, though predictable. The 5 Justices who voted in favor of the decision are all Christian. The dissenters were Jewish, except for Sotomayor, who is Catholic. There is no logic to this decision, their justification is that "it's tradition" and they took reasonable efforts to include all the different places of worship in the community to be inclusive. But what about people who don't believe, or who are spiritual but not religious? There are no places of worship for them, so how are they supposed to be included in the decision-making process here? How is "peer pressure" (which the court acknowledged was happening) not a government endorsement of religion? The only glimmer of hope here is that they made it clear that their decision applies only to this one town and is not meant to be applied across the board. So there is still room for another case to be made, but clearly any attempts need to wait until there is one more socially liberal justice on the court. 

[Thurisaz]

Considering just who sits in the supreme court currently (as far as I've heard over here in Germany), maybe the real shock is that such crap hasn't been decided on sooner.

[ExCBooster]

I think, like that town hall religious monument fiasco, this will only go until Satanists want to make a statement at said town meeting... Like with most things with Christianity and Politics, they firmly believe as the quote goes from Animal Farm: "everyone's equal, but some are more equal than others." People of different religions should go and insist on praying before said town meetings, everywhere.

[Overcame Faith]

Here is the Court's full opinion if anyone would like to read it.

 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-696_4f57.pdf

 

I thought this quote about the town's practice of inviting people to pray before their town meetings was interesting and may have a lot to do with why the court ruled as it did. However, see the part of the dissenting opinion I quote below for a fuller and more complete explanation of the town inviting those of different religions to pray the invocation.

 

After respondents complained that Chris­tian themes pervaded the prayers, to the exclusion of citizens who did not share those beliefs, the town invited a Jewish layman and the chairman of the local Baha’i tem­ple to deliver prayers. A Wiccan priestess who had read press reports about the prayer controversy requested, and was granted, an opportunity to give the invocation.

This seems to be the heart of the majority's opinion.

 

An insistence on nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer outlined in the Court’s cases. The Court found the prayers in Marsh consistent with the First Amendment not because they espoused only a generic theism but because our history and tradition have shown that prayer in this limited context could “coexis[t] with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom.” 463 U. S., at 786. The Congress that drafted the First Amendment would have been accustomed to invocations containing explicitly religious themes of the sort respondents find objectionable. One of the Senate’s first chaplains, the Rev. William White, gave prayers in a series that included the Lord’s Prayer, the Collect for Ash Wednesday, prayers for peace and grace, a general thanksgiving, St. Chrysostom’s Prayer, and a prayer seeking “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.” Letter from W. White to H. Jones (Dec. 29, 1830), in B. Wilson, Memoir of the Life of the Right Reverend William White, D. D., Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania 322 (1839); see also New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, Dec. 15, 1823, p. 1 (describing a Senate prayer addressing the “Throne of Grace”); Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1861) (reciting the Lord’s Prayer). The decidedly Christian nature of these prayers must not be dismissed as the relic of a time when our Nation was less pluralistic than it is today. Congress continues to permit its appointed and visiting chaplains to express themselves in a religious idiom. It acknowledges our growing diversity not by proscribing sectarian content but by welcoming ministers of many creeds.

The dissent of four justices begins like this. I find it quite good and is a proper statement of religious freedom in the U.S.

 

For centuries now, people have come to this country from every corner of the world to share in the blessing of religious freedom. Our Constitution promises that they may worship in their own way, without fear of penalty or danger, and that in itself is a momentous offering. Yet our Constitution makes a commitment still more remarkable— that however those individuals worship, they will count as full and equal American citizens. A Christian, a Jew, a Muslim (and so forth)—each stands in the same re­lationship with her country, with her state and local communities, and with every level and body of govern­ment. So that when each person performs the duties or seeks the benefits of citizenship, she does so not as an adherent to one or another religion, but simply as an American.

 

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. I do not contend that principle translates here into a bright separationist line. To the contrary, I agree with the Court’s decision in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), upholding the Nebraska Legislature’s tra­dition of beginning each session with a chaplain’s prayer. And I believe that pluralism and inclusion in a town hall can satisfy the constitutional requirement of neutrality; such a forum need not become a religion-free zone. But still, the Town of Greece should lose this case. The prac­tice at issue here differs from the one sustained in Marsh because Greece’s town meetings involve participation by ordinary citizens, and the invocations given—directly to those citizens—were predominantly sectarian in content. Still more, Greece’s Board did nothing to recognize reli­gious diversity: In arranging for clergy members to open each meeting, the Town never sought (except briefly when this suit was filed) to involve, accommodate, or in any way reach out to adherents of non-Christian religions. So month in and month out for over a decade, prayers steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public, commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute government benefits. In my view, that practice does not square with the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen, irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her government.