A town board’s practice of opening its monthly meetings with prayer impermissibly affiliated the town with the creed of Christianity and ran afoul of the principle of separation of church and state, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled yesterday.
Addressing for the first time the validity of legislative prayer practice under the First Amendment’s establishment clause, the circuit said the Town of Greece’s “process for selecting prayer-givers virtually ensured a Christian viewpoint,” even though the town board on a few occasions out of hundreds allowed invocations by a Jewish layperson, a Wiccan priestess and the chairman of the local Baha’i congregation.
