It’s 2014, and America is more religiously diverse than ever. Yet for more than a decade, the town of Greece, N.Y., has opened its board meetings with Christian prayers delivered by Christian chaplains. In the 10-year period at issue in the case, all but four of the 120-plus prayers were delivered by Christian clergy. Well more than two-thirds of the prayers were explicitly Christian, with guest chaplains asking citizens, among other things, to “acknowledge the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.”
Never before had the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the government to subject its citizens to sectarian prayers, even at legislative meetings. In 1983, the court allowed the Nebraska Legislature to open its sessions with prayers, but only because the chaplain had “removed all references to Christ.” In 1989, the court reiterated that “not even the unique history of legislative prayer can justify contemporary legislative prayers that have the effect of affiliating the government with any one specific faith or belief.”
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