{"id":42263,"date":"2013-11-08T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-08T11:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.austincnm.com\/?p=42263"},"modified":"2013-11-07T23:47:36","modified_gmt":"2013-11-08T05:47:36","slug":"lets-dialogue-prayer-town-hall-meeting-greece-v-galloway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2013\/11\/lets-dialogue-prayer-town-hall-meeting-greece-v-galloway\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s dialogue: Prayer at Town Hall Meeting, Greece v. Galloway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"flag\/firefighters\/mass\"<\/a>

Photo by Rachel Elisa Gardner. Taken outside Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston at a Mass honoring the city’s fire-fighters.<\/p><\/div>\n

Driving home Wednesday I heard this piece on NPR<\/a> about the Supreme Court hearing arguments for Town of Greece v. Galloway<\/a>, a case involving prayer and town hall meetings in Greece, NY. I decided to look into what other sources were saying about the case (NY Times,<\/a>\u00a0Deseret News<\/a>, Fox News<\/a>, Townhall.com,<\/a>\u00a0Christiannews.net<\/a>, Progressivevoices.com<\/a>\u00a0are some of the ones I looked at)\u00a0and also research the actual\u00a0court transcripts<\/a>\u00a0of Town of Greece v. Galloway.<\/p>\n

Rather than give you my own summary of the events, I invite you to peruse the sources above, and\/or find your own, and take some time to sort through the issue. What do you think?<\/p>\n

I’d like to offer two questions that resonated with me, that I would like to pose to you – please offer your thoughts!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Question one:<\/strong>\u00a0 I would echo Chief Justice Roberts question: what exactly is coercive in this environment?
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: What exactly –\u00a0since you are adopting the coercion test, what exactly\u00a0is coercive in this environment? Having to sit and\u00a0listen to the prayer?<\/p>\n

MR. LAYCOCK (for the respondents): There are many coercive\u00a0aspects here of varying degrees of importance. Citizens\u00a0are asked to participate, to join in the prayer.\u00a0They’re often asked to -\u00ad<\/p>\n

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: They are asked to\u00a0participate, and — but not in any tangible way. Theysay: Well, I’m not going to participate, and\u00a0everybody’s just sitting there.<\/p>\n

MR. LAYCOCK: They are often asked to\u00a0physically participate, to stand or to bow their heads.\u00a0The testimony is most of the citizens bow — most of the\u00a0citizens bow their heads whether they are asked to or\u00a0not. So people who are not participating are\u00a0immediately visible. The pastors typically say:\u00a0“Please join me in prayer.” They offer the prayer on\u00a0behalf of everyone there. They talk about “our\u00a0Christian faith.”<\/p>\n

JUSTICE SCALIA: This is coercion? He says,\u00a0you know — he says, “May we pray,” and somebody doesn’t\u00a0want to pray, so he stays seated.<\/p>\n

MR. LAYCOCK: What’s coercive about it is it\u00a0is impossible not to participate without attracting\u00a0attention to yourself, and moments later you stand up to\u00a0ask for a group home for your Down syndrome child or for\u00a0continued use of the public access channel or whatever\u00a0your petition is, having just, so far as you can tell,
\nirritated the people that you were trying to persuade. (p 36-37)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I understand that there could be, or perhaps were, coercive elements when only one religion was\/is honored or represented. But as I understand it, back in 2008 when the plaintiffs first filed a complaint, an effort was made to get the word out that people of all faiths were welcome to offer the opening prayers, and for a few weeks, people of other faiths did (people representing the Jewish and Baha’i faith offered prayers, and also someone practicing Wicca). \u00a0If that invitation was explicitly extended, where is the coercive element that violates the Establishment Clause?<\/p>\n

Mr Hungar made this point during Wednesday’s arguments:<\/p>\n

MR. HUNGAR: No, Your Honor. I mean, as\u00a0we — as we said in our brief, the principles that\u00a0undergird the Establishment Clause are equally\u00a0consistent with the position we’re advancing here. As\u00a0the — as your opinion in the County of Allegheny case\u00a0Alderson Reporting Company indicates, the fundamental — the core of Establishment\u00a0Clause concern is coercion or conduct that is so extreme\u00a0that it leads to the establishment of a religion because\u00a0it is putting the government squarely behind one faith\u00a0to the exclusion of others, and that’s clearly not -\u00ad\u00a0not what’s going on here. (p 14-15)<\/p>\n

JUSTICE BREYER: Do you have any objection\u00a0to — to doing one thing that was suggested in the\u00a0circuit court opinion, which is to publicize rather\u00a0\u00a0thoroughly in — in the area that those who were not\u00a0Christians, and perhaps not even religious, are also\u00a0welcome to appear and to have either a prayer or the\u00a0equivalent if they’re not religious? Do you have an\u00a0objection to that?<\/p>\n

MR. HUNGAR: Certainly not.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Question TWO: When we “approach the government,” should we, or can we, leave our faith out of it?\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0Justice Kagan says:<\/p>\n

JUSTICE KAGAN: Mr. Gershengorn, could you\u00a0respond to this? Here’s what our — our country\u00a0promises, our Constitution promises. It’s that, however\u00a0we worship, we’re all equal and full citizens. And I\u00a0think we can all agree on that.\u00a0And that means that when we approach the\u00a0government, when we petition the government, we do so\u00a0not as a Christian, not as a Jew, not as a Muslim, not\u00a0as a nonbeliever, only as an American.<\/strong> And what\u00a0troubles me about this case is that here a citizen is\u00a0going to a local community board, supposed to be the\u00a0closest, the most responsive institution of government\u00a0that exists, and is immediately being asked, being\u00a0forced to identify whether she believes in the things\u00a0\u00a0that most of the people in the room believe in, whether\u00a0she belongs to the same religious team as most of the\u00a0\u00a0people in the room do.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>And it strikes me that that might be\u00a0\u00a0inconsistent with this understanding that when we relate\u00a0\u00a0to our government, we all do so as Americans, and not as\u00a0Jews and not as Christians and not as nonbelievers. (p 24)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn’t seem to me that we should, or can, leave our faith, or any values, out of our “relating” to the government. I say that for two reasons. One, because healthy human persons are integrated<\/strong><\/em> – their culture, upbringing, values, etc interact to form a congruent whole, with each aspect of the self informing the other aspects. To say we can block off or compartmentalize a part of the self is false, or if done, unhealthy and mechanistic. I would argue that no value or outlook, whether that be the lens of faith, or the lens of growing up poor\/rich, or having big family, or have divorced parents, or having mixed heritage, whatever it is – you cannot separate that out, or neutralize it, and then call that fictitious, neutral part of your self “American.” Two – because isn’t the dialogue richest if we all bring what we have to the table?\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>It seems like the issue Justice Kagan’s points out is that the plaintiffs felt left out for not being on the majority team (I’m not diminishing this, being left out can quickly lead to discrimination).<\/p>\n

Instead of giving this false solution of “let’s just be Americans and nothing else,” as if being American were some neutral value-less state, I think the solution is perhaps more along the lines of affirming what each individual brings to the table, and letting that contribution stand on it’s own merit as part of the discussion, regardless of majority\/minority.<\/p>\n

That sounds American to me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please offer your comments or other resources – and let us respect what each one brings to the table!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driving home Wednesday I heard this piece on NPR about the Supreme Court hearing arguments for Town of Greece v. Galloway, a case involving prayer and town hall meetings in Greece, NY. I decided to look into what other sources were saying about the case (NY Times,\u00a0Deseret News, Fox News, Townhall.com,\u00a0Christiannews.net, Progressivevoices.com\u00a0are some of the… [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-42263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-blog","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":187431,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/popular-misconceptions-about-the-catholic-mass-part-i-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":0},"title":"Popular Misconceptions About the Catholic Mass, Part I: Music","author":"Michael Raia","date":"December 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A number of\u00a0liturgical reforms seen in the U.S. since Vatican II were not actually mandated or even recommended\u00a0by the Council, but\u00a0were reactionary shifts that had more to do with the culture of the\u00a0decade\u00a0\u2013 it\u2019s time to revisit\u00a0those changes. Numerous articles and studies published in recent months and years indicate that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pope Francis censes the sanctuary as he celebrates Mass with representatives from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia Sept. 26. (CNS photo\/Paul Haring) See POPE-PENN-BISHOPS Sept. 26, 2015.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/PopeFrancisMass-CNS-550x279.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/PopeFrancisMass-CNS-550x279.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/PopeFrancisMass-CNS-550x279.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":190002,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/12\/catholic-liturgy-101-introduction-to-liturgical-catechesis\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":1},"title":"Catholic Liturgy 101: Introduction to Liturgical Catechesis","author":"Michael Raia","date":"December 23, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A handful of friends and colleagues have requested a very basic survey of concepts on Catholic worship and liturgical catechesis \u2013 that is, teaching on liturgy. I find the progression in the following outline very helpful when explaining what liturgy is and why it's important in the big picture of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Faith"","block_context":{"text":"Faith","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/faith-blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Central mural in the triumphal arch above the apse of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westerville, OH by EverGreene Architectural Arts. (photo by Meleca Architecture)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/EverGreeneArchitects-550x413.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/EverGreeneArchitects-550x413.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/EverGreeneArchitects-550x413.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":513093,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/angels-dragons-v-minor-exorcisms\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":2},"title":"Angels & Dragons V: Minor Exorcisms","author":"Deacon Guadalupe Rodriguez","date":"November 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"With today\u2019s increase in pagan practices such as astrology, mediums, psychic readings, cleansings, New Age religion, Reiki, magic, angel touch, witchcraft, tarot cards, s\u00e9ances, Ouija boards, ghost hunters, Satanic music or worship, etc., people who have participated in any of these occult practices, including Christians, may feel demonically oppressed. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","block_context":{"text":"Column","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/column\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image12-550x330.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image12-550x330.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/image12-550x330.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":179829,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/the-prayers-1st-sunday-of-advent\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":3},"title":"The Prayers – 1st Sunday of Advent","author":"William Rooney","date":"November 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the guiding principles of the early church in formulating her doctrine was the phrase, lex orandi lex credenti, which translated means \u201cthe law of prayer [is] the law of believing.\u201d In that time, the Church Fathers, plagued as they were with heresies no less than we are and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "ACNM"","block_context":{"text":"ACNM","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Icon of the Last Judgement","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Icon-of-the-Last-Judgement.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1964636,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/angels-dragons-xxiii-st-michael-the-archangel-in-america\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":4},"title":"Angels & Dragons XXIII: St. Michael the Archangel in America","author":"Deacon Guadalupe Rodriguez","date":"August 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"In Tarpon Springs, Florida, USA, there is a shrine to St. Michael the Archangel with an ancient icon of St. Michael known for decades for miraculously curing many sick in America.\u00a0 The icon is approximately 400 years old, and it comes from Symi, an island in a chain known as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/image24-550x687.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/image24-550x687.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/atxcatholic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/image24-550x687.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":163455,"url":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/march-for-religious-freedom-november-22\/","url_meta":{"origin":42263,"position":5},"title":"March for Religious Freedom November 22 Part I","author":"Deacon Guadalupe Rodriguez","date":"October 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201c[T]he most fundamental human freedom [is] that of practicing one\u2019s faith openly, which for human beings is their reason for living.\u201d Saint John Paul II On Sunday, November 22nd, the Solemnity of Christ the King, the Knights of Columbus from the Austin area and around the state of Texas will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Column"","block_context":{"text":"Column","link":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/category\/acnm\/column\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Texas State Capitol","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.austincnm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/capitol-150x99.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atxcatholic.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}