US Supreme Court to take up case of Christian prayer in town meetings; White House sides with NY town

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about the constitutionality of public Christian prayer in town meetings on Wednesday, with the White House already taking the side of Greece, New York.

The Court will hear an appeal of a lower court decision in the case of Galloway v. Town of Greece surrounding the explicitly Christian prayers in open town meetings, spawned after two women complained about the prayers.

Susan Galloway, who is Jewish, and Linda Stephens, an atheist, complained about the prayers at the city’s town board meetings, according to The Los Angeles Times.

They were told they could “leave the room or just not listen,” according to Galloway.

After the residents complained, the town opened four of the next 12 meetings with prayers by individuals of other faiths including a Jewish man, a Wiccan priestess and a local Baha’i man, according to USA Today.

Stephens reportedly was targeted by vandalism, according to USA Today. One day she found her mailbox on top of her car, part of a fire hydrant turned up in her swimming pool and she received an anonymous letter telling her to “be careful … lawsuits can be detrimental.”

The case is quite major because it could conclusively allow city councils to open meetings with explicitly Christian prayers if the Supreme Court sides with Greece.

The White House has already sided with the town, citing judicial precedent and tradition, according to The Washington Times.

Indeed, precedent and tradition are clearly on the town’s side. Alan Sears and Joseph Infranco made this precise point in an article for The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Sears and Infranco point out that the last word on the issue from the Supreme Court came in the 1983 Marsh v. Chambers case that upheld public prayer in the Nebraska Legislature.

In terms of tradition, it is clear that the Founders supported prayer without forcing any participation in a national church and while holding diverse theological positions.

“As to how the Founders viewed legislative prayer, there can be no question; they considered it a desired accommodation of religion, and not coercion,” Sears and Infranco note.

Despite the Marsh v. Chambers case, there is much confusion on the issue of public prayer, thus the current case.

In a court filing, 85 members of Congress, mostly Republicans, stated that the Supreme Court “has issued a series of narrowly divided and splintered decisions that have confused the lower courts, baffled the public and incentivized government officials to suppress legitimate religious expression in order to avoid the costs and hazards of litigation.”

Indeed, the Court’s decisions have been genuinely confusing.

In 2005, the Court made two decisions in a single day. One upheld a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas state capitol, while a display in the McCreary County courthouse in Kentucky was declared unconstitutional, as the Associated Press noted.

A ruling on the Greece v. Galloway case is expected by June.