The Supreme Court says prayers that open town council meetings do not violate the Constitution even if they routinely stress a specific religion; Christianity.
The court said in 5-4 decision Monday that the content of the prayers is not critical as long as officials make a good-faith effort at inclusion.
The ruling was a victory for the town of Greece, N.Y., outside of Rochester.
In 1983, the court upheld an opening prayer in the Nebraska legislature and said that prayer is part of the nation’s fabric, not a violation of the First Amendment. Monday’s ruling was consistent with the earlier one.
(AP)
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6 Responses
This will seriously annoy secular Jews in particular, and the “freedom from religion” crowd in general.
It should annoy religious Jews to have to sit through Christian prayers.
Charlie: Jews shouldn’t rock the boat or interfere with non-Jews desires for their public religious practices.
Kuperman – Did you read the opinion(s)? The plaintiff was a Jew seeking to have either their prayers included, or have the prayers be non-denominational. Don’t know if she was frum, but the council meetings were in Greece, NY. I’d think this would annoy anyone, especially a frum Jew like you, if he did not want Christianity shoved down his throat.
The council meeting, according to the opinions, was a place for the public to conduct business like zoning variances. Imagine going in to the DMV to get your license renewed and you have to hear a Christian prayer from the clerk first. It’s exactly the same thing. This is where the US is headed… a theocracy, and it’s not our theocracy.
Since we have all 3 Jewish justices(breyer,ginzberg,kagan)on the anti religion side its our chiyuv as frum Jews to show that not all Jews are anti religion.This makes those frum people yukking it up at the Whitehouse about the extremely anti religious obamacare even more culpable.
The plaintiff was a frei Jew who would want to ban all religion, not just Christianity. Those who favor “freedom from religion” favor government policies to ban any expressions of religious belief in the public sphere (e.g. wearing a yarmulke in public, adjusting work schedules for religious reasons, waiver of laws that interfere with religion such as laws allowing kosher slaughter or allow non-doctors to do a Bris Milah). Our (meaning, the frum Jews) enemy lost. We don’t want a world in which you go to the DMV and are told that to be served (or to work there) you need to take off your kippah and be sure not to make brachos during your lunch hour, and what do you mean you want to leave early on Friday. We want liberal religious accomodation of all religions, not enforced secularism.
No one is insisting on Jews saying Christian prayers. There is really nothing wrong with the goyim being religious. If they don’t have the right to observe their religion, kal ve-homer it will be denied to members of small minorities such as ourselves. As those of us who work outside the frum ghetto often observe, those who oppose accomodating Orthodox Jews are not the pious (and often persecuted Christians), but the fanatical “freedom from religion” secularists, many if not most of whom are secular Jews (or at least, persons of Jewish descent and ethnicity).