Christian prayers to begin meetings held by a public agency are constitutional "as long as they do not denigrate non-Christians or proselytize," the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 today, Mark Sherman reports for The Associated Press.
The case stemmed from a case out of Greece, N.Y. (Wikipedia map), a city of 96,000 on Lake Ontario just east of Rochester. A federal appeals court ruled that the town council "violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity," Sherman writes.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, "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." All five justices who voted in favor of prayer are Roman Catholic.
Justice Elena Kagan, one of three Jewish justices, wrote, "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." (Read more)
The case stemmed from a case out of Greece, N.Y. (Wikipedia map), a city of 96,000 on Lake Ontario just east of Rochester. A federal appeals court ruled that the town council "violated the Constitution by opening nearly every meeting over an 11-year span with prayers that stressed Christianity," Sherman writes.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion, "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." All five justices who voted in favor of prayer are Roman Catholic.
Justice Elena Kagan, one of three Jewish justices, wrote, "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." (Read more)
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