Following yesterday’s Supreme Court decision holding sectarian legislative prayer constitutional, the American Humanist Association has announced a new program identifying secular and atheist speakers to deliver godless invocations at legislative meetings.
As I reported yesterday, although the legislative prayers in the Town of Greece were overwhelmingly exclusively Christian, the Court held that they did not run afoul of the Constitution. But the majority did leave the door open for the possibility that, under another set of facts, such a practice could amount to an Establishment Clause violation.
Given the nature of the Town of Greece prayers, the decision left many wondering how egregious a violation would have to be before the Court would find it unconstitutional.
While such a case might exist and become a target of litigation, the humanists are taking another approach: building on Justice Kennedy’s admonition that municipalities must strive to identify a diversity of local religions from which to choose people to deliver prayers, they are making available a list of individuals who are able to deliver an invocation from a secular or atheist perspective.
From the group’s statement:
The Supreme Court’s ruling, authored by Justice Kennedy, makes clear that local governments must make “reasonable efforts to identify all of the congregations located within its borders” and welcome an invocation by anyone who wishes to give one, regardless of their faith. The majority decision also states that the policy must be one of nondiscrimination. The opinion adds that the invocations must not “denigrate nonbelievers or religious minorities, threaten damnation, or preach conversion.”
The Humanist Society, an adjunct of the American Humanist Association, just launched as a platform for humanists to be identified within local government borders so that they can offer secular invocations pursuant to a legislative prayer practice. The website provides sample secular invocations and an interactive map to find a humanist who can deliver an invocation in one’s local area. Though this is a new program, there are already 50 individuals approved to give secular invocations, and the program is actively seeking to bolster this number.
“Non-religious people are often asked to contribute to a ceremonial event, but some struggle to find an alternative to religious wording,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “We want to make it easier for anyone who wants to give a secular invocation so that legislative meetings can be nondiscriminatory.”
Although many small towns do not have a synagogue, mosque, or other non-Christian house of worship, they surely have citizens of minority religions and no religion at all. Although the non-religious may not have a “congregation” as described in yesterday’s opinion, the humanist effort will make it harder for localities to either turn away secular speakers or claim they were unable to compile a diverse speaker list.
