Congress, Constitutional Law, Politics, Society

An Unholy Mess: Supreme Court Votes 5-4 In Favor of Christian Prayers At Local Council Meetings

supreme courtGreecelogoIn a blow to secularists and civil libertarians, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 in Greece v. Galloway to allow Christian prayers at a local council. The Court again left little clarity on the standard for future cases in what proved a highly fractured decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy tipped the balance in favor of the Town of Greece with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Justice Clarence Thomas. However, his opinion was left in pieces by a series of concurring opinions. Scalia and Thomas specifically bolted over Part II-B of Kennedy’s opinion (except as to Part II–B, concluding that the town’s prayer practice does not violate the Establishment Clause.) Alito wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Scalia. Justice Thomas also wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justice Scalia in part. Even the dissenting justices divided with a Breyer opinion for himself and a dissent by Kagan that was joined by Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Sotomayor. In other words, an unholy mess.


The record in the case was viewed by many as highly suspicious in how the council almost exclusively used Christian ministers while professing to be open to any faith, including atheists. The town followed an informal method for selecting prayer givers under which a town employee would call the congregations listed in local directory. That itself allowed for an obvious bias but also the town only had Christian ministers. Even Kennedy admitted that “from 1999 to 2007, all of the participating ministers were too.”

The prayers often referenced Jesus or Biblical passages:

“Lord we ask you to send your spirit of upon all of us gathered here this evening to do your work for the benefit of all in our community. We ask you to bless our elected and appointed officials so they may deliberate with wisdom and act with courage. Bless the members of our community who come here to speak before the board so they may state their cause with honesty and humility. . . . Lord we ask you to bless us all, that everything we do here tonight will move you to welcome us one day into your kingdom as good and faithful servants. We ask this in the name of our brother Jesus. Amen.” Id., at 45a.

“Lord, God of all creation, we give you thanks and praise for your presence and action in the world. We look with anticipation to the celebration of Holy Week and Easter. It is in the solemn events of next week that we find the very heart and center of our Christian faith. We acknowledge the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We draw strength, vitality, and confidence from his resurrection at Easter. . . . We pray for peace in the world, an end to terrorism,violence, conflict, and war. We pray for stability, democracy, and good government in those countries in which our armed forces are now serving, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . . Praise and glory be yours, O Lord, now and forever more. Amen.”

Kennedy emphasized that the Court had long recognized a historical practice of prayers as not violating the establishment clause:

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.

Kennedy found no evidence of coercion in the use of the prayers by the Town of Greece:

Ceremonial prayer is but a recognition that, since this Nation was founded and until the present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be understood by precepts far beyond the authority of government to alter or define and that willing participation in civic affairs can be consistent with a brief acknowledgment of their belief in a higher power, always with due respect for those who adhere to other beliefs. The prayer in this case has a permissible ceremonial purpose. It is not an unconstitutional establishment of religion.

Kennedy made clear that secular values would not replace religious values in such public meetings as a constitutional mandate and refused to require “chaplains to redact the religious content from their message in order to make it acceptable for the public sphere . . . 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.”

This does not of course help those who do not believe in theism. I suppose, like Rome, when in Greece just learn to do as the Greeks do.

The case is Greece v. Galloway, 12-696. In my Supreme Court class, the students voted overwhelmingly to affirm by a vote of 11-1. The prediction was closer. Five of us thought that the Court would reverse the Second Circuit (which it did) and seven students thought the Court would affirm.

Here are the opinions.

970 thoughts on “An Unholy Mess: Supreme Court Votes 5-4 In Favor of Christian Prayers At Local Council Meetings”

  1. It seems as though some liberals on this blog have either not read or understood Lakoff’s book. That is subsuming the book can be understood.

  3. Write a song, write a book … have a little talk.

    “George Lakoff wants to save his country. In a series of books, Lakoff, a linguist and cognitive scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, has explained how the right wins and keeps power: by framing issues and controlling minds. His latest book, “The Political Mind,” grounds his critique and his agenda in neuroscience. Lakoff proposes to beat conservatives at their own game. “Democracy is too important to leave the shaping of the brains of Americans to authoritarians,” he argues. But shaping brains is a treacherous business. It’s hard to manipulate voters and still be a democrat.

    Lakoff blames “neoliberals” and their “Old Enlightenment” mentality for the Democratic Party’s weakness. They think they can win elections by citing facts and offering programs that serve voters’ interests. When they lose, they conclude that they need to move farther to the right, where the voters are.

    This is all wrong, Lakoff explains. Neuroscience shows that pure facts are a myth and that self-interest is a conservative idea. In a “New Enlightenment,” progressives will exploit these discoveries. They’ll present frames instead of raw facts. They’ll train the public to think less about self-interest and more about serving others. It’s not the platform that needs to be changed. It’s the voters.” (Amazon, The Political Mind, by G. Lakoff).

    The current republican-tbagger party is the home of the psychopath, but they don’t care, cause their daddy didn’t care, grandpappy didn’t care, and great, great, very great grandpa King George didn’t either.

    “I was once …” is not the same as “I am now …”

    Republicans are no longer sane, they are consumed by selfishness, the absence of soul and conscience.

    But most distinctly, very virulent.

    1. Annie wrote: “Married women with children also use birth control.”

      Of course they do, but what kind of message do Democrats send when they preach the “RIGHT” to free birth control and free unfettered access to abortion? Add to this the message about gay marriage, and you have a mixture that speaks loudly to young people that marriage is merely a social contract between two people who like each other; reproduction is an unfortunate problem with the female body. The concept of marriage between the opposite sexes as a way to complete oneself and raise offspring is completely lost. This is one reason why young women today who want to have children skip over the idea of getting married. They get pregnant by several different men over the course of a few years and raise their children alone and penniless with only meager help from government assistance. Instead of fathers and husbands, now they have baby daddies who live however they want with little sense of duty and obligations to the spouse who has moved on to another man. I do not see this as a good thing for society in general. This is the reality of what the shortsighted Democrat doctrine has produced.

      1. David,
        I know you really believe what you say here and that’s a bit scary, but the reality is not what you imagine and have exaggerated in your mind. I raised my daughters and son in a liberal Democratic household. All three girls are happily married and two have children. My son hasn’t impregnated any hapless woman and is a young guy who already owns his own home. The problems that occur in the inner cities have to do with poverty and issues other than birth control. The more birth control the less unwanted children, the more likely the women can further their education, grow up and mature without children until they are better situated. Your ideas are yours, I’m glad many or most people don’t see things the way you do.

        1. Annie – birth control is a major issue in the inner city. Young Hispanic males are not ‘men’ until they get some girl pregnant, so they start as young as they can. Hispanic girls do not believe in abortion or contraception. My black girls would complain that their boyfriends would refuse to wear a condom because they did not like the way it felt, it felt funny. They wanted to go ‘bare-back’ was the term. So my black girls were getting pregnant, as well. Since the Hispanic girls where keeping their babies the black girls wanted to keep theirs, too.
          What I taught them was that they were going to get an education regardless. We were learning through their pregnancy and even though we might take a little time off for the birth of the baby, they had school work to do. I rarely lost a girl because she got pregnant. It was usually for other reasons. And the babies always came to graduation.

        2. Annie wrote: “the reality is not what you imagine and have exaggerated in your mind. I raised my daughters and son in a liberal Democratic household.”

          I’m not speaking from imagination or exaggerating anything. I speak from experience of working with the poor and destitute for over 30 years. You can find those unaffected by the cancerous liberal philosophy, or affected in different ways, but I am speaking about those who are affected in certain negative ways. Please don’t presume that they do not exist.

          As an example of your method of reasoning: It has been established in science that smoking causes cancer, but the truth is that you can find many people smoking who never have any problem with cancer. Some are 100 years old and cancer free. Mentioning such anecdotes does not mean that smoking never hurts anybody. The Tobacco industry was making that claim with their scientists for many years before it was seen for what it was.

          2. Elaine and SWM, perhaps we are victims of the feminazis, in that we haven’t realized our true potential and calling in life…to have multiple children and serve as a handmaiden to men.

          3. An observation I’ve made regarding some men in general over the years is that they would never go up against their own wives, but instead take out their misogynistic tendencies toward women on women other than their own wives. It’s not fun sleeping in the doghouse, I guess.

          4. Paul, we women TALK to each other about our husbands and all sorts of intimate things.

          5. Chuck, your wife sounds like she was one heck of a woman! I bet we Turley blog women would’ve loved her.

          6. Thank goodness David’s views are far out of the mainstream. Let’s keep it that way.

            1. Annie – what you fail to realize is that you do not decide the mainstream. For all you know, you might be far outside it.

              1. If David’s views are mainstream conservative Republican/ Tea Party, then all the MORE reason to NOT vote for them. Pretty basic. Thanks for the heads up.

                1. Annie wrote: “If David’s views are mainstream conservative Republican/ Tea Party, then all the MORE reason to NOT vote for them.”

                  So much for dialogue. So are you now taking the position that you would never vote for a Republican?

                  2. I hope those who engage in stalking realize they may end up being the victim instead.

              2. SWM, I’m sure that I would be considered quite ordinary in the way. Have chosen to live my life, was married and had four children in wedlock. In between babies. Went to nursing school and worked I between having my children. Thank goodness for birth control or lord knows, I may have had more than four and I wasn’t going to make childbearing my vocation in life. Luckily I did get get my education and profession, because when I was no longer married I had a way of supporting my children two of which were under ten and two in college and myself.

              3. Whoa, I just read what I wrote, lol. I think you can get the my meaning in that mess. I was texting at the same time with my three daughters about the arrival of my newest grandson who will be born tommorow, 8 days late! See liberals and Democrats love family and have children too, in wedlock, go figure.

                1. Duh, we’re guys. What part of guys don’t you understand? If it’s not written down in a blue print or can’t be derived with the standard rules of logic how are we supposed to know?

                2. Annie – they did not hand out instruction manuals. And guys don’t DO manuals anyway. 🙂

                  1. A general observation of human nature: when some people are losing an argument they become hostile and aggressive and make empty threats. Just like a two year old. Those people always appear small and impotent despite their rage.

                  2. Another observation, one about abusers: they try to isolate their victims away from their support group which would be family and friends. They often attempt to make those who come to the defense of the victim feel as if they are being paternalistic, that the victim is strong and doesn’t ever need anyone to defend them. Or they deflect blame on to the victim by indicating that the victim’s behavior war rented the abuse. I learned about these tactics when working at a women’s clinic for a time. It was very disturbing to see.

  6. swm – as a group the young do not vote in off-term elections.

  8. But, hey, I am a democrat, and we will gladly take in the young people that the ultra religious types that are currently in control of the republican party are forcing out.

    1. Families, motherhood, and the dignity and greatness of women and their natural gifts are not “ultra religious” ideas. It is amazing how blind some people are to the damage caused to society by celebrating free birth control and free abortions. You scream liberation, but you deliver loneliness, depression, diseases, and fatherless families.

  10. david,m, Your post is the way out right wing religious stuff that that young man was ranting about on cnbc. It is destroying the republican party.

  12. Once upon a time when the Earth was flat republicans were not republicans.

    Then librul scientists made the Earth into a globe.

    Even the Pope could not stop it.

    The republican party is currently insane as a result.

    Nothing is born insane, it takes hard work, and a strong constitution to get there.

    The republicans currently have enough of the right stuff … the right wing stuff … to show the entire world why mental health is important.

    1. Dredd wrote: “The republicans currently have enough of the right stuff … the right wing stuff … to show the entire world why mental health is important.”

      An anti-Republican already wrote a book about that. It is called, “Liberalism is a mental disorder.” You can order it from Amazon.com.

  14. david It was before the republicans came out against the ERA, birth control and woman’s right to chose. Those items were not included in the republican platform until the 1980’s. Gerald Ford was pro -choice and pro -era if I remember correctly. Now the GOP platform is packed with anti woman rhetoric. Read it. Some state’s republican platforms are even more anti-woman than the national one. If they choose to put an anti-gay marriage statement in the 2016 platform they will lose again.

    1. swarthmoremom wrote: “It was before the republicans came out against the ERA, birth control and woman’s right to chose.”

      Woman’s right to choose what? To kill her unborn child? To act like a man?

      The Republicans have the most pro-woman platform possible. The Democrats basically consider it pro-woman to turn women into men and to feminize men into sissies. In contrast, Republicans have always maintained equal opportunity for women, but we also acknowledge differences in strength and social roles that the sexes have in society. The most dignity that can be conferred upon a woman is to draw attention to her unique ability to bear children, and to glorify her great nurturing skills, and to have all of society to consider motherhood a very noble role. That is what is truly pro-woman, not the Democratic party philosophy which deceives and demeans women. How demeaning it is to teach women to be ashamed of their ability to have children, and to provide the means to disrupt nature’s operation in women, all in the name of trying to make women more like men. It is like teaching a princess how to avoid pregnancy in order to become either a spinster or a street whore, then claiming anybody with different ideas are waging a war against women.

  15. It wasn’t Sony, was it? It wasn’t News Corp, was it?

    And ‘whoring’ is an interesting way of viewing Americans doing business in China. Have you heard of Apple? Ford? GE? AT&T? Avon?

    You have heard about the new business model called ‘globalization’, haven’t you?

    1. There is a difference between adding 5 minutes of film in China to make the Communists happy and building a factory to use their cheap labor.

  18. News Corp is shoveling money to Obama? hahahahahah
    Walt Disney is shoveling money to Obama? hahahahahaha

  19. Paul S

    What’s wrong with wanting to get American movies on Chinese screens? Sounds like a good capitalist idea.

    Is Sony ‘flogging’ money to Obama? I think the movie business has changed a great deal since 1980. Maybe you want to take another look. After all, Streisand is now over 70.

    1. I have no problem with movies companies whoring themselves to get their films on the screens in China, it is a huge market. By the same token pre-WWII American movie companies where whoring themselves to the Nazis (except for one company, Warners, I think) to keep that market. There is this condemnation of George Prescott Bush for his Nazi connections, but tons of companies had Nazi connections. It was not illegal.

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