Supreme Court: public prayer isn’t unconstitutional, even if it is mostly Christian

Kagan argued that the case of Greece differs significantly from the 1983 case because “Greece’s town meetings involve participation by ordinary citizens, and the invocations given — directly to those citizens — were predominantly sectarian in content.”

Previously, a federal appeals court in New York ruled that the town violated the Constitution by opening almost every meeting over 11 years with prayers that stressed Christianity, according to the Associated Press.

After Galloway and Stephens complained in 2008, four out of 12 meetings were opened by non-Christians. Previously, there were spans from 1999 to 2007 and January 2009 through June 2010 when every meeting was opened with a Christian-oriented invocation, according to AP.

While the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said that the consistently Christian prayer amounted to Greece endorsing Christianity, Kennedy argued that judges shouldn’t evaluate the content of prayer.

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