SCOTUS to hear case on prayer at Gov' funct.s

[mykcob4]

The latest test to see if the overly conservative Supreme Court will finally uphold teh Constitution is happening today. The SCOTUS is hearing a case challenging prayers before government meetings.
http://thecontributor.com/pray-justices ... t-meetings
An Atheist and a jewish person are suing the city of Greece NY stating that it is unconstitutional to have a prayer before the city council meetings that is establishment of a religion and therefor unconstitutional. The defense maintains that it is a long held tradition lasting for over 200 years.
1. Greece NY isn't over 200 years in the first place and
2. Tradition doesn't trump constitutionality any way shape or form.
Given the fact that the SCOTUS is heavily religious christian conservative it is doubtful that the correct legal verdict will emerge.

[LikelyToBreak]

Well, I guess we could pray for a constitutionally correct verdict, but it wouldn't do any good.  A lawyer told me once, "Almost every court case is a coin toss."  Especially with SCOTUS, as one member once said, "The Constitution says what we say it says."  Or something like that.  

Anyway, it would be nice to get rid of those damn time consuming prayers at government functions.

[aileron]

The morons in these local-yokel legislatures have no sense of decency.  Witnessing the scene of a Christian minister asking a Jewish man to bow his yamaka-topped head for a prayer to Jesus should feel so socially awkward to these idiots that they'd never want to repeat the experience.  

In prior decisions the SCOTUS invoked the "ceremonial deism" nonsense.  By taking this case they're admitting that ceremonial deism is nothing more than wishful thinking.  Christians are not deists.

[Plu]

When the primary defense is tradition, the outcome of the case should already be known. Tradition is never a valid argument for anything.

Unfortunately though most people are stupid and thrive on it  :roll:

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Obviously the court won't watch the movie, Fiddler on the Roof nor take any lessons about tradition from it.

[entropy]

The Supreme Court is facing an issue that was brought up in the dissent in the 1983 Marsh v. Chambers decision:

Justice Brennan, with Justice Marshall joining, wrote in a dissenting opinion, "The Court makes no pretense of subjecting Nebraska's practice of legislative prayer to any of the formal "tests" that have traditionally structured our inquiry under the Establishment Clause. That it fails to do so is, in a sense, a good thing, for it simply confirms that the Court is carving out an exception to the Establishment Clause, rather than reshaping Establishment Clause doctrine to accommodate legislative prayer."

So the court carved out an exception to the Establishment Clause without any limiting "tests" and now it becomes clear why that was a stupid thing to do. From a Washington Post article on the case:

On the other side are Greece residents Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens who contend they and others who attend the meetings are a captive audience and should not be subjected to sectarian prayers.

Their argument appealed to Justice Sonia Sotomayor who asked Deputy Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn what he and others in the courtroom would do if Roberts "got up at the beginning of this session and said, 'All rise for a prayer."

Gershengorn said, "I don't think many would sit, Your Honor."

People attending meetings in Greece wouldn't feel any differently, Sotomayor said. "So why do you think that someone who is sitting in a small room where hearings of this nature are being held, when the guy who's about, the chairman of this legislative body, is about to rule on an application you're bringing to him or her, why do you think any of those people wouldn't feel coerced to stand?" she said.

There is no rationalization in the Marsh v. Chambers case for why people should be coerced like that - the ruling there just blatantly carved out an exception to the Establishment Clause essentially "saying" that such issues like coercion don't exist or don't matter.  

My guess is that the court will issue some mushy mealy-minded ruling that says such prayers are okay and put the merest gloss of a "test" to limit this exception to the Establishment Clause.