U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
RFP Staff
♦The Supreme Court agreed to consider whether prayers can be offered at government meetings which may effect our Rowan County Commissioners ability to pray in Jesus’ Name. Praying is a common government practice on the Federal level and throughout the states for over 200 years. The Supreme Court Case, concerning prayer, will arrive from Greece, N.Y. and is likely to be heard by June 2014.
According a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals previous ruling concerning Greece’s Town Board–that board repeatedly employed Christian clergy to conduct prayers prior to the opening of their public meetings. The Supreme Court noted the division among other Federal appeals courts, upholding prayers at public meetings, and decided to take up the Greece, N.Y. case.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian non-profit, appealed the Greece prayer case to the U.S. Supreme Court and was supported 49 members of Congress and 18 state attorney generals. The Alliance Defending Freedom’s press release noted the Supreme Court affirmed the practice of prayer prior to public meetings in Marsh v. Chambers (1983) where it cited an “unambiguous and unbroken history” of such prayers. The Alliance for Defending Freedom, through their senior counsel Brett Harvey maintains: “A few people should not be able to extinguish the traditions of our nation merely because they heard something they didn’t like because the authors of the Constitution invoked God’s blessing on public proceedings, this tradition shouldn’t suddenly be deemed unconstitutional.”
Two women Susan Galloway, a Jew, and Linda Stephens, an atheist claim to be offended by Greece’s prayer practices. They have noted Greece’s habitual use of volunteer Christian clergy and that 2/3rds of Greece’s prayers, delivered between 1999 and 2010, employed references to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Your Son. Greece has permitted clergy of other faiths including Wicca, Jewish, and Baha’i.
Rowan County will be patiently waiting for the Supreme Court prayer decision to arrive by June 2014.
