From USA Today A majority of conservative justices clearly didnt want governments to get more involved in parsing which prayers are OK and which go too far toward endorsing one religion or coercing those in attendance. That bodes well for the town, which defended its practice based on more than two centuries of U.S. history. But the case, Town of Greece v. Galloway, appeared to be a difficult one for several justices. They sought to balance that lengthy history against the towns often explicit prayers, and they worried that strict guidelines on prayer-givers -- such as those used by Congress and many state legislatures -- might be worse than the towns anything-goes policy. Part of what we are trying to do here is to maintain a multi-religious society in a peaceful and harmonious way, Justice Elena Kagan said near the conclusion of the hour-long argument. And every time the court gets involved in things like this, it seems to make the problem worse rather than better. While it has upheld the concept of legislative prayer, most recently in a 1983 case involving the Nebraska legislature, the case from Greece (pop. 94,000) in Upstate New York presented the justices with a new twist: mostly Christian clergy delivering frequently sectarian prayers before an audience that often includes people with business to conduct. While that concerned several liberal justices, such as Kagan and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the potential solutions struck most of them as worse. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who could be the swing vote, worried that enforcing standards for clergy to follow involves the state very heavily in the censorship and the approval or disapproval of prayers. ------------------------------- Nothing to get all worked up about, really.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 16:57:21 +0000
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