Term: 2013
Docket: 12-696
Town Of Greece v. Galloway
- Pro
12-696 GREECE, NY V. GALLOWAY DECISION BELOW: 681 F.3d 20 CERT. GRANTED 5/20/2013 QUESTION PRESENTED: In Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983), this Court upheld the practice of starting legislative sessions with an invocation, based on an "unambiguous and unbroken history” of legislative prayer dating back to the First Congress. Id. At 792. The prayers in Marsh were offered for sixteen years by the same paid Presbyterian minister and frequently contained explicitly Christian themes. See id. at 785, 793 n.14. Nonetheless, this Court held that such prayers are "simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country," and constitutional unless the selection of prayer-givers "stem[s] from an impermissible motive" or "the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief." Id. at 792, 793, 794-95. The Court declined to apply the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). In this case, the court of appeals held that the Town of Greece violated the Establishment Clause by allowing volunteer private citizens to open town board meetings with a prayer. Though the Town had never regulated the content of the prayers, had permitted any citizen from any religious tradition to volunteer to be a prayer-giver, and did not discriminate in selecting prayer-givers, the court struck down the Town's prayer practice, applying an "en-dorsement" test derived from Lemon. See App. 17a. The question presented is: Whether the court of appeals erred in holding that a legislative prayer practice violates the Establishment Clause notwithstanding the absence of discrimination in the selection of prayer-givers or forbidden exploitation of the prayer opportunity. LOWER COURT CASE NUMBER: 10-3635
The U.S. Supreme Court case Town of Greece v. Galloway in 2013 revolved around the issue of whether the town's practice of beginning legislative sessions with prayers violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits any law respecting an establishment of religion. The plaintiffs, Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, argued that these prayers were predominantly Christian in nature and thus endorsed Christianity over other religions. However, a majority on the court disagreed; they ruled that as long as there was no discrimination in selecting who may offer a prayer and it did not coerce participation from non-adherents, such practices are permissible under America’s tradition of long-standing legislative prayer dating back to Congress' first session in 1789. Therefore, this decision upheld that sectarian (specifically religious) legislative prayers do not violate the Constitution.
In the dissenting opinion for Town of Greece v. Galloway, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the town's practice of beginning legislative sessions with Christian prayers violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause, which prohibits government endorsement of a particular religion. She contended that by consistently inviting Christian clergy to deliver these invocations and using predominantly Christian language in them, the town was aligning itself with one faith and thereby excluding citizens who did not share those beliefs. This exclusionary practice, she said, undermined both religious diversity and pluralism - key principles upon which America was founded. Furthermore, she noted that this case differed from Marsh v. Chambers (1983), where legislative prayer was upheld because it had become part of our nation’s fabric through historical tradition; here there wasn't such history or tradition involved in local government meetings like city council meetings as opposed to state legislatures or Congress.
