Town Of Greece v. Galloway

134 S.Ct. 1811 (2014)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D, a town with a population of 94,000, is in upstate New York. I began its monthly town board meetings with a moment of silence. In 1999, the newly elected town supervisor, John Auberger, decided to replicate the prayer practice he had found meaningful while serving in the county legislature. Auberger would invite a local clergyman to the front of the room to deliver an invocation. After the prayer, Auberger would thank the minister for serving as the board’s “chaplain for the month” and present him with a commemorative plaque. This follows a tradition practiced by Congress and dozens of state legislatures. D picked local ministers. D at no point excluded or denied an opportunity to a would-be prayer giver. Its leaders maintained that a minister or layperson of any persuasion, including an atheist, could give the invocation. Nearly all of the congregations in town were Christian; and from 1999 to 2007, all of the participating ministers were too. D neither reviewed the prayers in advance of the meetings nor provided guidance as to their tone or content, in the belief that exercising any degree of control over the prayers would infringe both the free exercise and speech rights of the ministers. Ps objected that the prayers violated their religious or philosophical views. At one meeting, P admonished board members that she found the prayers “offensive,” “intolerable,” and an affront to a “diverse community.” After Ps complained, D invited a Jewish layman and the chairman of the local Baha’i temple to deliver prayers. A Wiccan priestess who had read press reports about the prayer controversy requested, and was granted, an opportunity to give the invocation. Ps sued D for violation of the Establishment Clause. The District Court, on summary judgment upheld the prayer practice as consistent with the First Amendment. It rejected the theory that legislative prayer must be nonsectarian. It concluded that references to Jesus, and the occasional request that the audience stand for the prayer, did not amount to impermissible proselytizing. It cited prayer invocations at the U.S. House of Representatives as well. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed. It concluded that the “steady drumbeat” of Christian prayer, unbroken by invocations from other faith traditions, tended to affiliate the town with Christianity. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.