Former CLR Forum guest Perry Dane has a typically thoughtful post about the legislative prayer decision. The post offers a distinctively Brennan-esque, separationist perspective, with two moving parts: legislative prayer should be unconstitutional for separationist reasons; but if it is to be constitutional, legislative prayer should not be policed by the Court for ecumenical sufficiency. A bit from the second half of the argument:
To forcefully strip legislative prayer of its rootedness in particular faith traditions or to demand a compulsive even-handedness in rotations of chaplains would only further trivialize and politicize the act.
That’s not to say that public prayers should be “sectarian.” Quite the contrary. Religious (and even sympathetic non-religious) folk can find ways to pray together. And the wisest religious traditions demand sensitivity to other faiths (and persons of no faith) in the public arena. But if the Constitution is to allow official public prayer (which, as I’ve said, it shouldn’t), then it has no business demanding such wisdom as the price of admission to the halls of government.
I think there is a difference between policing the prayers to assure they are non-sectarian and asking those who give prayers to be sensitive to the pluralistic character of the religious views of the community. I think the Town of Greece should have done the latter and should not have done the former.