SCOTUS Upholds Prayer at Public Meetings - Josh Gerstein
I support this ruling. Inclusive instead of exclusive or banned.
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 5/5/14 11:33 AM EDT
The Supreme Court ruled Monday, 5-4, that sectarian prayers can be presented at official government meetings without running afoul of the Constitution’s prohibition on establishment of religion.
Acting in a case brought against Greece, N.Y., over its practice of allowing local ministers to deliver prayers at town board meetings containing beliefs specific to particular Christian denominations, the court’s majority said such prayers are legally permissible as long as the government does not discriminate among those seeking to present a prayer.
“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,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s conservative majority. “The Congress that drafted the First Amendment would have been accustomed to invocations containing explicitly religious themes of the sort respondents find objectionable.”
Kennedy also warned that putting restrictions on the content of prayers would put government officials in the inappropriate position of vetting religious views.
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