Religion
Related: About this forumA Defeat for Religious Neutrality - NYT Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/opinion/a-defeat-for-religious-neutrality.html?_r=0By THE EDITORIAL BOARDMAY 5, 2014
The American values of pluralism and inclusion are central to the First Amendment, which forbids government from favoring or aligning itself with any particular religion or believers over nonbelievers.
In a lamentable ruling on Monday, the Supreme Courts conservative majority brushed past those core values to allow the town of Greece, in upstate New York, to begin its town hall meetings with a sectarian prayer nearly always from a Christian chaplain of the month.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, relied on the Supreme Courts decision in Marsh v. Chambers, a 1983 case in which the court upheld the Nebraska Legislatures practice of opening its sessions with a chaplains prayer, saying that such invocations were deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.
Yet, as Justice Elena Kagan emphasized in a persuasive dissent, determining whether a particular prayer program violates the First Amendment is a fact-specific exercise, and there are important distinctions between the practice in the Nebraska case and the practice in the New York town. Justice Kagan said a town-hall meeting need not become a religion-free zone, and that legislative prayer has a distinctive constitutional warrant by virtue of tradition, dating back to the first session of Congress. But she said the practice in the town of Greece does not fit that tradition, for starters, because, unlike the Nebraska case, which involved an audience of elected legislators, the town hall meetings involved ordinary citizens, some there to petition their local government for permits, zoning variances and other individualized matters.
More at link
cbayer
(146,218 posts)this morning.
There is a lot of discussion about how this pertains to many issues around religion in the US and how this effects non-believers, including humanists, atheists, agnostics, spiritual/not religious, etc.
Recommended if you are interested in this topic.
pinto
(106,886 posts)Allowing this leaves the barn door open, so to speak. Thanks for the post.
The same terminology and arguments have been used right here on DU.
I remember back to President Obama's inauguration, when threads appeared that were critical of the excessive religiosity. They were shouted down with cries of "Tradition!" and "Don't you atheists have something better to do?" and "Let's save our efforts for the REAL violations of church-state separation!"
Oh some tried to point out that the little things enable the big things, that if you don't at least talk about and make an effort on the little things, it will be harder to fight the big things.
They were shouted down, of course. So it seems kind of odd that now there is concern about this.