Baptist group says government prayer violates consciences, undermines voluntary religion

[SecularMotion]

WASHINGTON - Official prayer at local government meetings violates the First Amendment and demeans genuine faith, according to the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in a brief filed Sept. 23 at the U.S. Supreme Court. The church-state group says the First Amendment's Establishment Clause protects the rights of individuals and faith communities to engage in religious worship as a voluntary expression of individual conscience and prohibits the government from appropriating those rights.

The BJC filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Town of Greece v. Galloway, opposing the practice of opening municipal meetings with prayer. The town's "practice of beginning a participatory local government meeting with a communal prayer infringes the liberty of conscience of not just religious minorities, but also of Christians who believe that worship should be voluntary," according to the brief. The Founders and our Baptist forebears understood "that prayer is an expression of voluntary religious devotion, not the business of the government."

While the town argues its practice is constitutional under the Supreme Court's Marsh v. Chambers decision (1983), the BJC brief draws a sharp distinction between that precedent and the practice of the town.

The prayer practice upheld in Marsh involved a chaplain employed by the Nebraska Legislature to minister to its members, a practice the Court found comparable to the historical tradition in Congress. The practice in Greece differs fundamentally because "[l]ocal board meetings directly affect citizens in a way that legislative meetings do not," according to the brief. "A passive visitor in the gallery of the U.S. Congress is simply in a different position than a citizen preparing to speak before a town board."

http://www.smithmountaineagle.com/news/article_661d67e6-26b4-11e3-acf1-0019bb2963f4.html

[cleanhippie]

1. Holy crap!

Maybe there is a god!

[FiveGoodMen]

2. I'll second that

(The holy crap part, anyway)

[cbayer]

3. Wow. I would have never seen that coming.

We were talking about this in another thread and it was predicted that the SCOTUS would probably uphold there previous rulings, but this could change the game.

[FBaggins]

4. Actually... this isn't at all a surprise.

The group was created for just such an argument. They are firmly pro church/state separation. Remember that one of the few characteristics shared by people who call themselves "baptist" is that they don't share many characteristics.

But it isn't looking like the court will uphold the previous ruling (which was that the legislative prayer is unconstitutional).

Respondents (that is... the people suing the town) have essentially dumped the argument that won them (unanimously) a victory at the circuit course level. Up until now they've argued that the town's actions essentially endorsed christianity (that a reasonable person would believe so).

This is known as the "Lemon/endorsement test" (and as I said... they won with that argument). For some reason, they've entirely dropped it at the USSC level. In fact, they ask that the Lemon test be thrown out an a new test created. I'm having a tough time identifying why they would do this unless they believe that they can't win with it and they're changing tactics at the last minute (in essence... a "hail mary" play).

So win or lose, it's unlikely that the lower court ruling will stand. They could rule the other way... or overturn it but replace it with a different standard that still has the town's actions unconstitutional... or they could kick the can down the road and get rid of Lemon, but send the case back to the 2nd Circuit for consideration of the new arguments. Since the current respondent position has never been adjudicated at an appellate level, they might not be willing to set new precedent on their own.

[cbayer]

5. Thanks for that info. I don't know much about this particular group,

and probably made some false assumptions about them.

I may not have been clear, but what I meant to say was it looked like SCOTUS would not reverse their own past decision (by not upholding the lower courts ruling).

This stuff makes me dizzy and is the reason I never even thought of pursuing a profession in the law.