“We cannot treat everybody, literally everybody equally without eliminating prayer altogether.”
The Supreme Court heard arguments today in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a case challenging the constitutionality of prayer before legislative sessions.
Arguing that the prayers in the Town of Greece’s city council meetings violated the First Amendment, Douglas Laycock offered this quote that sure Sounds Like Humanism to us!
The Appignani Humanist Legal Center has filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Town of Greece v. Galloway. We believe that sanctioned prayers before town council meetings constitute an endorsement of religion in violation of the First Amendment. To read our statement, and the brief we’ve filed, click here: http://americanhumanist.org/news/details/2013-11-aha-statement-on-town-of-greece-v-galloway-scotus-ca
Have you seen examples of local governments using prayer in violation of the First Amendment?
A student in Mississippi reached out to the AHA with videos of religious assemblies at her school. After their district refused to change their policies, we took action. The video below contains clips documenting the overtly sectarian nature of these assemblies.
The AHA continues to fight for the separation of church and state.
For more information on this story, you can read our release from when the suit was filed back earlier this year: http://americanhumanist.org/news/details/2013-04-humanists-object-to-christian-assembly-at-public-sch
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AHA says Board of Commissioners violated separation of church and state
For Immediate Release
Contact: William Burgess, bburgess@americanhumanist.org, 202-238-9088 x 102
(Washington, DC, May 1, 2013) — The Board of Commissioners in Carroll County, Maryland, was sued today by the Washington DC-based American Humanist Association for opening its meetings with Commissioner-delivered sectarian prayers.
According to the legal filing, prayers containing the Christian references “Jesus,” “Lord” and “Savior” were delivered on more than 50 separate occasions at board meetings held during 2011 and 2012. In March 2012, the Appignani Humanist Legal Center of the American Humanist Association sent a letter to the Board of County Commissioners explaining how such prayers are unconstitutional. No reply was received.
“As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has already decided, it is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause when a legislature opens its sessions with sectarian prayers,” said William Burgess, coordinator of the Appignani Humanist Legal Center. “The Carroll County board has unconstitutionally affiliated itself with and promoted Christianity through these prayers.”
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs in the case find the sectarian prayers “divisive and exclusionary, leaving them to conclude that they are unwelcome at Board meetings and political outsiders in their own community.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Carroll County is just northwest of Baltimore and includes the cities of Eldersburg, Westminster and Taneytown. It borders on Pennsylvania.
The complaint is available online here.