finding no violation of First Amendment by invocations at borough council meetings
How later courts described this case
- finding no violation of First Amendment by invocations at borough council meetings
- upholding invocational prayers at a borough council meeting because the religious dimension of the prayers did not predominate over secular goals, nor was the primary effect of the prayer to promote or inhibit religion
- cert. denied by 454 US. 958
- in an establishment case where impact of practice de minimis, it is unobjectionable
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
CLIFFORD, J.,
concurring.
Justice Handler’s navigation through the treacherous waters of the establishment clause is sufficiently cautious to attract my concurring vote. While I view the question as a close one, on the basis of this record I join in the Court’s conclusion that the practice challenged here does not have the primary effect of advancing religion over nonreligion.
As I understand that practice, the governing body of the Borough of Metuchen has authorized no more than the solemnification of its proceedings by one of its members, chosen on a rotating basis. The governing body does not — nor could it constitutionally — encourage or require its members to cast that solemnification in religious form or otherwise make it religious in nature. The fact that some members choose a non-sectarian, religious medium of expression should not, without more, be construed as an endorsement of that medium by the governing body. It is specifically because that thought is at the heart of the Court’s opinion that I vote with it.
*259 Moreover, the opinion contains an implicit, if not explicit, warning found on the other side of that coin: should the frequency or intensity of these religious expressions be increased so that the practice of solemnification becomes identified unmistakably as a religious one and governmental endorsement may reasonably be inferred, then the practice will be invalidated.
Justice PASHMAN joins in this opinion.
PASHMAN and CLIFFORD JJ., concurring in the result.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ and Justices SULLIVAN, PASHMAN, CLIFFORD, SCHREIBER, HANDLER and POLLOCK — 7.
For reversal — None.