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															SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–696

															_________________

															TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK, PETITIONER v.SUSAN
GALLOWAY et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 5, 2014]

															     Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part
II–B.[ 1 ]*

															     The Court must decide
whether the town of Greece, New York, imposes an impermissible
establishment of religion by opening its monthly board meetings
with a prayer. It must be concluded, consistent with the
Court’s opinion in Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783
(1983) , that no violation of the Constitution has been shown.

															I

															     Greece, a town with a
population of 94,000, is in upstate New York. For some years, it
began its monthly town board meetings with a moment of silence. In
1999, the newly elected town supervisor, John Auberger, decided to
replicate the prayer practice he had found meaningful while serving
in the county legislature. Following the roll call and recitation
of the Pledge of Allegiance, Auberger would invite a local
clergyman to the front of the room to deliver an invocation. After
the prayer, Auberger would thank the minister for serving as the
board’s “chaplain for the month” and present him
with a commemorative plaque. The prayer was intended to place town
board members in a solemn and deliberative frame of mind, invoke
divine guidance in town affairs, and follow a tradition practiced
by Congress and dozens of state legislatures. App.
22a–25a.

															     The town followed an
informal method for selecting prayer givers, all of whom were
unpaid volunteers. A town employee would call the congregations
listed in a local directory until she found a minister available
for that month’s meeting. The town eventually compiled a list
of willing “board chaplains” who had accepted
invitations and agreed to return in the future. The town at no
point excluded or denied an opportunity to a would-be prayer giver.
Its leaders maintained that a minister or layperson of any
persuasion, including an atheist, could give the invocation. But
nearly all of the congregations in town were Christian; and from
1999 to 2007, all of the participating ministers were too.

															     Greece neither reviewed
the prayers in advance of the meetings nor provided guidance as to
their tone or content, in the belief that exercising any degree of
control over the prayers would infringe both the free exercise and
speech rights of the ministers. Id., at 22a. The town instead left
the guest clergy free to compose their own devotions. The resulting
prayers often sounded both civic and religious themes. Typical were
invocations that asked the divinity to abide at the meeting and
bestow blessings on the community:

															“Lord we ask you to send your spirit
of servanthood upon all of us gathered here this evening to do your
work for the benefit of all in our community. We ask you to bless
our elected and appointed officials so they may deliberate with
wisdom and act with courage. Bless the members of our community who
come here to speak before the board so they may state their cause
with honesty and humility. . . . Lord we ask you to
bless us all, that everything we do here tonight will move you to
welcome us one day into your kingdom as good and faithful servants.
We ask this in the name of our brother Jesus. Amen.” Id., at
45a.

															Some of the ministers spoke in a distinctly
Christian idiom; and a minority invoked religious holidays,
scripture, or doctrine, as in the following prayer:

															“Lord, God of all creation, we give
you thanks and praise for your presence and action in the world. We
look with anticipation to the celebration of Holy Week and Easter.
It is in the solemn events of next week that we find the very heart
and center of our Christian faith. We acknowledge the saving
sacrifice ofJesus Christ on the cross. We draw strength, vitality,
and confidence from his resurrection at
Easter. . . . We pray for peace in the world, an end
to terrorism, violence, conflict, and war. We pray for stability,
democracy, and good government in those countries in which our
armed forces are now serving, especially in Iraq and
Afghanistan. . . . Praise and glory be yours, O
Lord, now and forever more. Amen.” Id., at 88a–89a.

															     Respondents Susan
Galloway and Linda Stephens attended town board meetings to speak
about issues of local concern, and they objected that the prayers
violated their religious or philosophical views. At one meeting,
Galloway admonished board members that she foundthe prayers
“offensive,” “intolerable,” and an affront
to a “diverse community.” Complaint in No.
08–cv–6088 (WDNY), ¶66. After respondents
complained that Christian themes pervaded the prayers, to the
exclusion of citizens who did not share those beliefs, the town
invited a Jewish layman and the chairman of the local Baha’i
temple to deliver prayers. A Wiccan priestess who had read press
reports about the prayer controversy requested, and was granted, an
opportunity to give the invocation.

															     Galloway and Stephens
brought suit in the United States District Court for the Western
District of New York. They alleged that the town violated the First
Amendment’s Establishment Clause by preferring Christians
over other prayer givers and by sponsoring sectarian prayers, such
as those given “in Jesus’ name.” 732
F. Supp. 2d 195, 203 (2010). They did not seek an end to the
prayer practice, but rather requested an injunction that would
limit the town to “inclusive and ecumenical” prayers
that referred only to a “generic God” and would not
associate the government with any one faith or belief. Id., at 210,
241.

															     The District Court on
summary judgment upheld the prayer practice as consistent with the
First Amendment. It found no impermissible preference for
Christianity, noting that the town had opened the prayer program to
all creeds and excluded none. Although most of the prayer givers
were Christian, this fact reflected only the predominantly
Christian identity of the town’s congregations, rather than
an official policy or practice of discriminating against minority
faiths. The District Court found no authority for the proposition
that the First Amendment required Greece to invite clergy from
congregations beyond its borders in order to achieve a minimum
level of religious diversity.

															     The District Court also
rejected the theory that legislative prayer must be nonsectarian.
The court began its inquiry with the opinion in Marsh v. Chambers,
463 U. S. 783 , which permitted prayer in state legislatures
by a chaplain paid from the public purse, so long as the prayer
opportunity was not “exploited to proselytize or advance any
one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief,” id., at
794–795. With respect to the prayer in Greece, the District
Court concluded that references to Jesus, and the occasional
request that the audience stand for the prayer, did not amount to
impermissible proselytizing. It located in Marsh no additional
requirement that the prayers be purged of sectarian content. In
this regard the court quoted recent invocations offered in the
U. S. House of Representatives “in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ,” e.g., 156 Cong Rec. H5205 (June 30, 2010), and
situated prayer in this context as part a long tradition. Finally,
the trial court noted this Court’s statement in County of
Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh
Chapter, 492 U. S. 573, 603 (1989) , that the prayers in Marsh
did not offend the Establishment Clause “because the
particular chaplain had ‘removed all references to
Christ.’ ” But the District Court did not read
that statement to mandate that legislative prayer be nonsectarian,
at least in circumstances where the town permitted clergy from a
variety of faiths to give invocations. By welcoming many
viewpoints, the District Court concluded, the town would be
unlikely to give the impression that it was affiliating itself with
any one religion.

															     The Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit reversed. 681 F. 3d 20, 34 (2012). It
held that some aspects of the prayer program, viewed in their
totality by a reasonable observer, conveyed the message that Greece
was endorsing Christianity. The town’s failure to promote the
prayer opportunity to the public, or to invite ministers from
congregations outside the town limits, all but “ensured a
Christian viewpoint.” Id., at 30–31. Although the court
found no inherent problem in the sectarian content of the prayers,
it concluded that the “steady drumbeat” of Christian
prayer, unbroken by invocations from other faith traditions, tended
to affiliate the town with Christianity. Id., at 32. Finally, the
court found it relevant that guest clergy sometimes spoke on behalf
of all present at the meeting, as by saying “let us
pray,” or by asking audience members to stand and bow their
heads: “The invitation . . . to participate in the
prayer . . . placed audience members who are nonreligious
or adherents of non-Christian religion in the awkward position of
either participating in prayers invoking beliefs they did not share
or appearing to show disrespect for the invocation.” Ibid.
That board members bowed their heads or made the sign of the cross
further conveyed the message that the town endorsed Christianity.
The Court of Appeals emphasized that it was the “interaction
of the facts present in this case,” rather than any single
element, that rendered the prayer unconstitutional. Id., at 33.

															     Having granted
certiorari to decide whether the town’s prayer practice
violates the Establishment Clause, 569 U. S. ___ (2013), the
Court now reverses the judgment of the Court of Appeals.

															II

															     In Marsh v. Chambers,
463 U. S. 783 , the Court found no First Amendment violation
in the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of opening its
sessions with a prayer delivered by a chaplain paid from state
funds. The decision concluded that legislative prayer, while
religious in nature, has long been understood as compatible with
the Establishment Clause. As practiced by Congress since the
framing of the Constitution, legislative prayer lends grav-ity to
public business, reminds lawmakers to transcend petty differences
in pursuit of a higher purpose, and expresses a common aspiration
to a just and peaceful soci-ety. See Lynch v. Donnelly, 465
U. S. 668, 693 (1984) (O’Connor, J., concurring); cf. A.
Adams & C. Emmerich, A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty 83
(1990). The Court has considered this symbolic expression to be a
“tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held,”
Marsh, 463 U. S., at 792, rather than a first, treacherous
step towards establishment of a state church.

															     Marsh is sometimes
described as “carving out an exception” to the
Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, because it
sustained legislative prayer without subjecting the practice to
“any of the formal ‘tests’ that have
traditionally structured” this inquiry. Id., at 796, 813
(Brennan, J., dissenting). The Court in Marsh found those tests
unnecessary because history supported the conclusion that
legislative invocations are compatible with the Establishment
Clause. The First Congress made it an early item of business to
appoint and pay official chaplains, and both the House and Senate
have maintained the office virtually uninterrupted since that time.
See id., at 787–789, and n. 10; N. Feldman, Divided by
God 109 (2005). But see Marsh, supra, at 791–792, and
n. 12 (noting dissenting views among the Framers); Madison,
“Detached Memoranda”, 3 Wm. & Mary Quarterly 534,
558–559 (1946) (hereinafter Madison’s Detached
Memoranda). When Marsh was decided, in 1983, legislative prayer had
persisted in the Nebraska Legislature for more than a cen-tury, and
the majority of the other States also had the same, consistent
practice. 463 U. S., at 788–790, and n. 11.
Although no information has been cited by the parties to indicate
how many local legislative bodies open their meetings with prayer,
this practice too has historical precedent. See Reports of
Proceedings of the City Council of Boston for the Year Commencing
Jan. 1, 1909, and Ending Feb. 5, 1910, pp. 1–2 (1910) (Rev.
Arthur Little) (“And now we desire to invoke Thy presence,
Thy blessing, and Thy guidance upon those who are gathered here
this morning . . .”). “In light of the
unambiguous and unbroken history of more than 200 years, there can
be no doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with
a prayer has become part of the fabric of our society.”
Marsh, supra, at 792.

															     Yet Marsh must not be
understood as permitting a practice that would amount to a
constitutional violation if not for its historical foundation. The
case teaches instead that the Establishment Clause must be
interpreted “by reference to historical practices and
understandings.” County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 670
(Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
part). That the First Congress provided for the appointment of
chaplains only days after approving language for the First
Amendment demonstrates that the Framers considered legislative
prayer a benign acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.
D. Currie, The Constitution in Congress: The Federalist Period
1789–1801, pp. 12–13 (1997). In the 1850’s, the
judiciary committees in both the House and Senate reevaluated the
practice of official chaplaincies after receiving petitions to
abolish the office. The committees concluded that the office posed
no threat of an establishment because lawmakers were not compelled
to attend the daily prayer, S. Rep. No. 376, 32d Cong., 2d
Sess., 2 (1853); no faith was excluded by law, nor any favored,
id., at 3; and the cost of the chaplain’s salary imposed a
vanishingly small burden on taxpayers, H. Rep. No. 124, 33d
Cong., 1st Sess., 6 (1854). Marsh stands for the proposition that
it is not necessary to define the precise boundary of the
Establishment Clause where history shows that the specific practice
is permitted. Any test the Court adopts must acknowledge a practice
that was accepted by the Framers and has withstood the critical
scrutiny of time and political change. County of Allegheny, supra,
at 670 (opinion of Kennedy, J.); see also School Dist. of Abington
Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 294 (1963) (Brennan, J.,
concurring) (“[T]he line we must draw between the permissible
and the impermissible is one which accords with history and
faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding
Fathers”). A test that would sweep away what has so long been
settled would create new controversy and begin anew the very
divisions along religious lines that the Establishment Clause seeks
to prevent. See Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U. S. 677 –704
(2005) (Breyer, J., concurring in judgment).

															     The Court’s
inquiry, then, must be to determine whether the prayer practice in
the town of Greece fits within the tradition long followed in
Congress and the state legislatures. Respondents assert that the
town’s prayer exercise falls outside that tradition and
transgresses the Establishment Clause for two independent but
mutually reinforcing reasons. First, they argue that Marsh did not
approve prayers containing sectarian language or themes, such as
the prayers offered in Greece that referred to the “death,
resurrection, and ascension of the Savior Jesus Christ,” App.
129a, and the “saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the
cross,” id., at 88a. Second, they argue that the setting and
conduct of the town board meetings create social pressures that
force nonadherents to remain in the room or even feign
participation in order to avoid offending the representatives who
sponsor the prayer and will vote on matters citizens bring before
the board. The sectarian content of the prayers compounds the
subtle coercive pressures, they argue, because the nonbeliever who
might tolerate ecumenical prayer is forced to do the same for
prayer that might be inimical to his or her beliefs.

															A

															     Respondents maintain
that prayer must be nonsectarian, or not identifiable with any one
religion; and they faultthe town for permitting guest chaplains to
deliver prayers that “use overtly Christian terms” or
“invoke specifics of Christian theology.” Brief for
Respondents 20. A prayer is fitting for the public sphere, in their
view, only if it contains the ‘ “most general,
nonsectarian reference to God,’ ” id., at 33
(quoting M. Meyerson, Endowed by Our Creator: The Birth of
Religious Freedom in America 11–12 (2012)), and eschews
mention of doctrines associated with any one faith, Brief for
Respondents 32–33. They argue that prayer which contemplates
“the workings of the Holy Spirit, the events of Pentecost,
and the belief that God ‘has raisedup the Lord Jesus’
and ‘will raise us, in our turn, and put us by His
side’ ” would be impermissible, as would any
prayer that reflects dogma particular to a single faith tradition.
Id., at 34 (quoting App. 89a and citing id., at 56a, 123a,
134a).

															     An insistence on
nonsectarian or ecumenical prayer as a single, fixed standard is
not consistent with the tradition of legislative prayer outlined in
the Court’s cases. The Court found the prayers in Marsh
consistent with the First Amendment not because they espoused only
a ge-neric theism but because our history and tradition have shown
that prayer in this limited context could “coexis[t] with the
principles of disestablishment and religious freedom.” 463
U. S., at 786. The Congress that drafted the First Amendment
would have been accustomed to invocations containing explicitly
religious themes of the sort respondents find objectionable. One of
the Senate’s first chaplains, the Rev. William White, gave
prayers in a series that included the Lord’s Prayer, the
Collect forAsh Wednesday, prayers for peace and grace, a general
thanksgiving, St. Chrysostom’s Prayer, and a prayer seeking
“the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, &c.” Letter
from W. White to H. Jones (Dec. 29, 1830), in B. Wilson, Memoir of
the Life of the Right Reverend William White, D. D., Bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the State of Pennsylvania 322
(1839); see also New Hampshire Patriot & State Gazette, Dec.
15, 1823, p. 1 (describing a Senate prayer addressing the
“Throne of Grace”); Cong. Globe, 37th Cong., 1st Sess.,
2 (1861) (reciting the Lord’s Prayer). The decidedly
Christian nature of these prayers must not be dismissed as the
relic of a time when our Nation was less pluralistic than it is
today. Congress continues to permit its appointed and visiting
chaplains to express themselves in a religious idiom. It
acknowledges our growing diversity not by proscribing sectarian
content but by welcoming ministers of many creeds. See, e.g., 160
Cong. Rec. S1329 (Mar. 6, 2014) (Dalai Lama) (“I am a
Buddhist monk—a simple Buddhist monk—so we pray to
Buddha and all other Gods”); 159 Cong. Rec. H7006 (Nov. 13,
2013) (Rabbi Joshua Gruenberg) (“Our God and God of our
ancestors, Everlasting Spirit of the Universe
. . .”); 159 Cong. Rec. H3024 (June 4, 2013)
(Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami) (“Hindu scripture declares,
without equivocation, that the highest of high ideals is to never
know-ingly harm anyone”); 158 Cong. Rec. H5633 (Aug. 2, 2012)
(Imam Nayyar Imam) (“The final prophet of God, Muhammad,
peace be upon him, stated: ‘The leaders of a people are a
representation of their deeds’ ”).

															     The contention that
legislative prayer must be generic or nonsectarian derives from
dictum in County of Allegheny, 492 U. S. 573 , that was
disputed when written and has been repudiated by later cases. There
the Court held that a crèche placed on the steps of a county
courthouse to celebrate the Christmas season violated the
Establishment Clause because it had “the effect of endorsing
a patently Christian message.” Id., at 601. Four dissenting
Justices disputed that endorsement could be the proper test, as it
likely would condemn a host of traditional practices that recognize
the role religion plays in our society, among them legislative
prayer and the “forthrightly religious” Thanksgiving
proclamations issued by nearly every President since Washington.
Id., at 670–671. The Court sought to counter this criticism
by recasting Marsh to permit only prayer that contained no overtly
Christian references:

															“However history may affect the
constitutionality of nonsectarian references to religion by the
government, history cannot legitimate practices that demonstrate
the government’s allegiance to a particular sect or creed
. . . . The legislative prayers involved in Marsh
did not violate this principle because the particular chaplain had
‘removed all references to Christ.’ ” Id.,
at 603 (quoting Marsh, supra, at 793, n. 14; footnote
omitted).

															     This proposition is
irreconcilable with the facts of Marsh and with its holding and
reasoning. Marsh nowhere suggested that the constitutionality of
legislative prayer turns on the neutrality of its content. The
opinion noted that Nebraska’s chaplain, the Rev. Robert E.
Palmer, modu-lated the “explicitly Christian” nature of
his prayer and “removed all references to Christ” after
a Jewish law-maker complained. 463 U. S., at 793, n. 14.
With this foot-note, the Court did no more than observe the
practical demands placed on a minister who holds a permanent,
appointed position in a legislature and chooses to write his or her
prayers to appeal to more members, or at least to give less offense
to those who object. See Mallory, “An Officer of the House
Which Chooses Him, and Nothing More”: How Should Marsh v.
Chambers Apply to Rotating Chaplains?, 73 U. Chi. L. Rev.
1421, 1445 (2006). Marsh did not suggest that Nebraska’s
prayer practice would have failed had the chaplain not acceded to
the legislator’s request. Nor did the Court imply the rule
that prayer violates the Establishment Clause any time it is given
in the name of a figure deified by only one faith or creed. See Van
Orden, 545 U. S., at 688, n. 8 (recognizing that the
prayers in Marsh were “often explicitly Christian” and
rejecting the view that this gave rise to an establishment
violation). To the contrary, the Court instructed that the
“content of the prayer is not of concern to judges,”
provided “there is no indication that the prayer opportunity
has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to
disparage any other, faith or belief.” 463 U. S., at
794–795.

															     To hold that
invocations must be nonsectarian would force the legislatures that
sponsor prayers and the courts that are asked to decide these cases
to act as supervisors and censors of religious speech, a rule that
would involve government in religious matters to a far greater
degree than is the case under the town’s current practice of
neither editing or approving prayers in advance nor criticizing
their content after the fact. Cf. Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical
Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. ___, ___ (2012)
(slip op., at 13–14). Our Government is prohibited from
prescribing prayers to be recited in our public institutions in
order to promote a preferred system of belief or code of moral
behavior. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 430 (1962) . It
would be but a few steps removed from that prohibition for
legislatures to require chaplains to redact the religious content
from their message in order to make it acceptable for the public
sphere. Government may not mandate a civic religion that stifles
any but the most generic reference to the sacred any more than it
may prescribe a religious orthodoxy. See Lee v. Weisman, 505
U. S. 577, 590 (1992) (“The suggestion that government
may establish an official or civic religion as a means of avoiding
the establishment of a religion with more specific creeds strikes
us as a contradiction that cannot be ac-cepted”); Schempp,
374 U. S., at 306 (Goldberg, J., concurring) (arguing that
“untutored devotion to the concept of neutrality” must
not lead to “a brooding and pervasive devotion to the
secular”).

															     Respondents argue, in
effect, that legislative prayer may be addressed only to a generic
God. The law and the Court could not draw this line for each
specific prayer or seek to require ministers to set aside their
nuanced and deeply personal beliefs for vague and artificial ones.
There is doubt, in any event, that consensus might be reached as to
what qualifies as generic or nonsectarian. Honorifics like
“Lord of Lords” or “King of Kings” might
strike a Christian audience as ecumenical, yet these titles may
have no place in the vocabulary of other faith tradi-tions. The
difficulty, indeed the futility, of sifting sectarian from
nonsectarian speech is illustrated by a letter thata lawyer for the
respondents sent the town in the early stages of this litigation.
The letter opined that references to “Father, God, Lord God,
and the Almighty” would be acceptable in public prayer, but
that references to “Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the
Holy Trinity” would not. App. 21a. Perhaps the writer
believed the former grouping would be acceptable to monotheists.
Yet even seemingly general references to God or the Father might
alienate nonbelievers or polytheists. McCreary County v. American
Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U. S. 844, 893 (2005)
(Scalia, J., dissenting). Because it is unlikely that prayer will
be inclusive beyond dispute, it would be unwise to adopt what
respondents think is the next-best option: permitting those
religious words, and only those words, that are acceptable to the
majority, even if they will exclude some. Torcaso v. Watkins, 367
U. S. 488, 495 (1961) . The First Amendment is not a majority
rule, and government may not seek to define permissible categories
of religious speech. Once it invites prayer into the public sphere,
government must permit a prayer giver to address his or her own God
or gods as conscience dictates, unfettered by what an administrator
or judge considers to be nonsectarian.

															     In rejecting the
suggestion that legislative prayer must be nonsectarian, the Court
does not imply that no constraints remain on its content. The
relevant constraint derives from its place at the opening of
legislative sessions, where it is meant to lend gravity to the
occasion and reflect values long part of the Nation’s
heritage. Prayer that is solemn and respectful in tone, that
invites lawmakers to reflect upon shared ideals and common ends
before they embark on the fractious business of governing, serves
that legitimate function. If the course and practice over time
shows that the invocations denigrate nonbeliev-ers or religious
minorities, threaten damnation, or preach conversion, many present
may consider the prayer to fall short of the desire to elevate the
purpose of the occasion and to unite lawmakers in their common
effort. That circumstance would present a different case than the
one presently before the Court.

															     The tradition reflected
in Marsh permits chaplains to ask their own God for blessings of
peace, justice, and freedom that find appreciation among people of
all faiths. That a prayer is given in the name of Jesus, Allah, or
Jehovah, or that it makes passing reference to religious doctrines,
does not remove it from that tradition. These religious themes
provide particular means to universal ends. Prayer that reflects
beliefs specific to only some creeds can still serve to solemnize
the occasion, so long as the practice over time is not
“exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage
any other, faith or belief.” Marsh, 463 U. S., at
794–795.

															     It is thus possible to
discern in the prayers offered to Congress a commonality of theme
and tone. While these prayers vary in their degree of religiosity,
they often seek peace for the Nation, wisdom for its lawmakers, and
justice for its people, values that count as universal and that are
embodied not only in religious traditions, but in our founding
documents and laws. The first prayer delivered to the Continental
Congress by the Rev. Jacob Duché on Sept. 7, 1774, provides
an example:

															     “Be Thou
present O God of Wisdom and direct the counsel of this Honorable
Assembly; enable them to settle all things on the best and surest
foundations; that the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that
Order, Harmony, and Peace be effectually restored, and the Truth
and Justice, Religion and Piety, prevail and flourish among the
people.

															     “Preserve the
health of their bodies, and the vigor of their minds, shower down
on them, and the millions they here represent, such temporal
Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world, and crown
them with everlasting Glory in the world to come. All this we ask
in the name and through the merits ofJesus Christ, Thy Son and our
Saviour, Amen.” W. Federer, America’s God and Country
137 (2000).

															     From the earliest days
of the Nation, these invocations have been addressed to assemblies
comprising many different creeds. These ceremonial prayers strive
for the idea that people of many faiths may be united in a
community of tolerance and devotion. Even those who dis-agree as to
religious doctrine may find common ground in the desire to show
respect for the divine in all aspects of their lives and being. Our
tradition assumes that adult citizens, firm in their own beliefs,
can tolerate and perhaps appreciate a ceremonial prayer delivered
by a person of a different faith. See Letter from John Adams to
Abigail Adams (Sept. 16, 1774), in C. Adams, Familiar Letters of
John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution
37–38 (1876).

															     The prayers delivered
in the town of Greece do not fall outside the tradition this Court
has recognized. A number of the prayers did invoke the name of
Jesus, the Heavenly Father, or the Holy Spirit, but they also
invoked universal themes, as by celebrating the changing of the
seasons or calling for a “spirit of cooperation” among
town leaders. App. 31a, 38a. Among numerous examples of such prayer
in the record is the invocation given by the Rev. Richard Barbour
at the September 2006 board meeting:

															“Gracious God, you have richly
blessed our nationand this community. Help us to remember your
generosity and give thanks for your goodness. Bless the elected
leaders of the Greece Town Board as they conduct the business of
our town this evening. Give them wisdom, courage, discernment and a
single-minded desire to serve the common good. We ask your blessing
on all public servants, and especially on our police force,
firefighters, and emergency medical personnel. . . .
Respectful of every religious tradition, I offer this prayer in the
name of God’s only son Jesus Christ, the Lord, Amen.”
Id., at 98a–99a.

															     Respondents point to
other invocations that disparaged those who did not accept the
town’s prayer practice. One guest minister characterized
objectors as a “minority” who are “ignorant of
the history of our country,” id., at 108a, while another
lamented that other towns did not have “God-fearing”
leaders, id., at 79a. Although these two remarks strayed from the
rationale set out in Marsh, they do not despoil a practice that on
the whole reflects and embraces our tradition. Absent a pattern of
prayers that over time denigrate, proselytize, or betray an
impermissible government purpose, a challenge based solely on the
content of a prayer will not likely establish a constitutional
violation. Marsh, indeed, requires an inquiry into the prayer
opportunity as a whole, rather than into the contents of a single
prayer. 463 U. S., at 794–795.

															     Finally, the Court
disagrees with the view taken by the Court of Appeals that the town
of Greece contravened the Establishment Clause by inviting a
predominantly Christian set of ministers to lead the prayer. The
town made reasonable efforts to identify all of the congregations
located within its borders and represented that it would welcome a
prayer by any minister or layman who wished to give one. That
nearly all of the congregations in town turned out to be Christian
does not reflect an aversion or bias on the part of town leaders
against minority faiths. So long as the town maintains a policy of
nondiscrimination, the Constitution does not require it to search
beyond its borders for non-Christian prayer givers in an effort to
achieve religious balancing. The quest to promote “a
‘diversity’ of religious views” would require the
town “to make wholly inappropriate judgments about the number
of religions [it] should sponsor and the relative frequency with
which it should sponsor each,” Lee, 505 U. S., at 617
(Souter, J., concurring), a form of government entanglement with
religion that is far more troublesome than the current
approach.

															B

															     Respondents further
seek to distinguish the town’s prayer practice from the
tradition upheld in Marsh on the ground that it coerces
participation by nonadherents. They and some amici contend that
prayer conducted in the intimate setting of a town board meeting
differs in fundamental ways from the invocations delivered in
Congress and state legislatures, where the public remains
segregated from legislative activity and may not address the body
except by occasional invitation. Citizens attend town meetings, on
the other hand, to accept awards; speak on matters of local
importance; and petition the board for action that may affect their
economic interests, such as the granting of permits, business
licenses, and zoning variances. Respondents argue that the public
may feel subtle pressure to participate in prayers that violate
their beliefs in order to please the board members from whom they
are about to seek a favorable ruling. In their view the fact that
board members in small towns know many of their constituents by
name only increases the pressure to conform.

															     It is an elemental
First Amendment principle that government may not coerce its
citizens “to support or participate in any religion or its
exercise.” County of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 659
(Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
part); see also Van Orden, 545 U. S., at 683 (plurality
opinion) (recognizing that our “institutions must not press
religious observances upon their citizens”). On the record in
this case the Court is not persuaded that the town of Greece,
through the act of offering a brief, solemn, and respectful prayer
to open its monthly meetings, compelled its citizens to engage in a
religious observance. The inquiry remains a fact-sensitive one that
considers both the setting in which the prayer arises and the
audience to whom it is directed.

															     The prayer opportunity
in this case must be evaluated against the backdrop of historical
practice. As a practice that has long endured, legislative prayer
has become part of our heritage and tradition, part of our
expressive idiom, similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, inaugural
prayer, or the recitation of “God save the United States and
this honorable Court” at the opening of this Court’s
sessions. See Lynch, 465 U. S., at 693 (O’Connor, J.,
concurring). It is presumed that the reasonable observer is
acquainted with this tradition and understands that its purposes
are to lend gravity to public proceedings and to acknowledge the
place religion holds in the lives of many private citizens, not to
afford government an opportunity to proselytize or force truant
constituents into the pews. See Salazar v. Buono, 559 U. S.
700 –721 (2010) (plurality opinion); Santa Fe
Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U. S. 290, 308 (2000) .
That many appreciate these acknowledgments of the divine in our
public institutions does not suggest that those who disagree are
compelled to join the expression or approve its content.
West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642
(1943) .

															     The principal audience
for these invocations is not, indeed, the public but lawmakers
themselves, who may find that a moment of prayer or quiet
reflection sets the mind to a higher purpose and thereby eases the
task of governing. The District Court in Marsh described the prayer
exercise as “an internal act” directed at the Nebraska
Legislature’s “own members,” Chambers v. Marsh,
504 F. Supp. 585, 588 (Neb. 1980), rather than an effort to
promote religious observance among the public. See also Lee, 505
U. S., at 630, n. 8 (Souter, J., concurring) (describing
Marsh as a case “in which government officials invoke[d]
spiritual inspiration entirely for their own benefit”);
Atheists of Fla., Inc. v. Lakeland, 713 F. 3d 577, 583 (CA11
2013) (quoting a city resolution providing for prayer “for
the benefit and blessing of” elected leaders);
Madison’s Detached Memoranda 558 (characterizing prayer in
Congress as “religious worship for national
representatives”); Brief for U. S. Senator Marco Rubio
et al. as Amici Curiae 30–33; Brief for 12 Members of
Congress as Amici Curiae 6. To be sure, many members of the public
find these prayers meaningful and wish to join them. But their
purpose is largely to accommodate the spiritual needs of lawmakers
and connect them to a tradition dating to the time of the Framers.
For members of town boards and commissions, who often serve
part-time and as volunteers, ceremonial prayer may also reflect the
values they hold as private citizens. The prayer is an opportunity
for them to show who and what they are without denying the right to
dissent by those who disagree.

															     The analysis would be
different if town board members directed the public to participate
in the prayers, singled out dissidents for opprobrium, or indicated
that their decisions might be influenced by a person’s
acquiescence in the prayer opportunity. No such thing occurred in
the town of Greece. Although board members themselves stood, bowed
their heads, or made the sign of the cross during the prayer, they
at no point solicited similar gestures by the public. Respondents
point to several occasions where audience members were asked to
rise for the prayer. These requests, however, came not from town
leaders but from the guest ministers, who presumably are accustomed
to directing their congregations in this way and might have done so
thinking the action was inclusive, not coercive. See App. 69a
(“Would you bow your heads with me as we invite the
Lord’s presence here tonight?”); id., at 93a
(“Let us join our hearts and minds together in
prayer”); id., at 102a (“Would you join me in a moment
of prayer?”); id., at 110a (“Those who are willing may
join me now in prayer”). Respondents suggest that
constituents might feel pressure to join the prayers to avoid
irritating the officials who would be ruling on their petitions,
but this argument has no evidentiary support. Nothing in the record
indicates that town leaders allocated benefits and burdens based on
participation in the prayer, or that citizens were received
differently depending on whether they joined the invocation or
quietly declined. In no instance did town leaders signal disfavor
toward nonparticipants or suggest that their stature in the
community was in any way diminished. A practice that classified
citizens based on their religious views would violate the
Constitution, but that is not the case before this Court.

															     In their declarations
in the trial court, respondents stated that the prayers gave them
offense and made them feel excluded and disrespected. Offense,
however, does not equate to coercion. Adults often encounter speech
they find disagreeable; and an Establishment Clause violation is
not made out any time a person experiences a sense of affront from
the expression of contrary religious views in a legislative forum,
especially where, as here, any member of the public is welcome in
turn to offer an invocation reflecting his or her own convictions.
See Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U. S. 1, 44
(2004) (O’Connor, J., concurring) (“The compulsion of
which Justice Jackson was concerned . . . was of the
direct sort—the Constitution does not guarantee citizens a
rightentirely to avoid ideas with which they disagree”). If
circum-stances arise in which the pattern and practice of
ceremonial, legislative prayer is alleged to be a means to coerce
or intimidate others, the objection can be addressed in the regular
course. But the showing has not been made here, where the prayers
neither chastised dissenters nor attempted lengthy disquisition on
religious dogma. Courts remain free to review the pattern of
prayers over time to determine whether they comport with the
tradition of solemn, respectful prayer approved in Marsh, or
whether coercion is a real and substantial likelihood. But in the
general course legislative bodies do not engage in impermissible
coercion merely by exposing constituents to prayer they would
rather not hear and in which they need not participate. See County
of Allegheny, 492 U. S., at 670 (Kennedy, J., concurring in
judgment in part and dissenting in part).

															     This case can be
distinguished from the conclusions and holding of Lee v. Weisman,
505 U. S. 577 . There the Court found that, in the context of
a graduation where school authorities maintained close supervision
over the conduct of the students and the substance of the ceremony,
a religious invocation was coercive as to an objecting student.
Id., at 592–594; see also Santa Fe Independent School Dist.,
530 U. S., at 312. Four Justices dissented in Lee, but the
circumstances the Court confronted there are not present in this
case and do not control its outcome. Nothing in the record suggests
that members of the public are dissuaded from leaving the meeting
room during the prayer, arriving late, or even, as happened here,
making a later protest. In this case, as in Marsh, board members
and constituents are “free to enter and leave with little
comment and for any number of reasons.” Lee, supra, at 597.
Should nonbelievers choose to exit the room during a prayer they
find distasteful, their absence will not stand out as disrespectful
or even noteworthy. And should they remain, their quiet
acquiescence will not, in light of our traditions, be interpreted
as an agreement with the words or ideas expressed. Neither choice
represents an unconstitutional imposition as to mature adults, who
“presumably” are “not readily susceptible to
religious indoctrination or peer pressure.” Marsh, 463
U. S., at 792 (internal quotation marks and citations
omitted).

															     In the town of Greece,
the prayer is delivered during the ceremonial portion of the
town’s meeting. Board members are not engaged in policymaking
at this time, but in more general functions, such as swearing in
new police officers, inducting high school athletes into the town
hall of fame, and presenting proclamations to volunteers, civic
groups, and senior citizens. It is a moment for town leaders to
recognize the achievements of their constituents and the aspects of
community life that are worth celebrating. By inviting ministers to
serve as chaplain for the month, and welcoming them to the front of
the room alongside civic leaders, the town is acknowledging the
central place that religion, and religious institutions, hold in
the lives of those present. Indeed, some congregations are not
simply spiritual homes for town residents but also the provider of
social services for citizens regardless of their beliefs. See App.
31a (thanking a pastor for his “community
involvement”); id., at 44a (thanking a deacon “for the
job that you have done on behalf of our community”). The
inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger
exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect
are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they
represent rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers.

															     Ceremonial prayer is
but a recognition that, since this Nation was founded and until the
present day, many Americans deem that their own existence must be
understood by precepts far beyond the authority of government to
alter or define and that willing participation in civic affairs can
be consistent with a brief acknowledgment of their belief in a
higher power, always with due respect for those who adhere to other
beliefs. The prayer in this case has a permissible ceremonial
purpose. It is not an unconstitutional establishment of
religion.

															*  *  *

															     The town of Greece
does not violate the First Amendment by opening its meetings with
prayer that comports with our tradition and does not coerce
participation by nonadherents. The judgment of the U. S. Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed.

															It is so ordered. Notes 1 *  and join this opinion
in full. and join this opinion except as to Part
II–B. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–696

															_________________

															TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK, PETITIONER v.SUSAN
GALLOWAY et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 5, 2014]

															     Justice Alito, with
whom Justice Scalia joins,concurring.

															     I write separately to
respond to the principal dissent, which really consists of two very
different but intertwined opinions. One is quite narrow; the other
is sweeping. I will address both.

															I

															     First, however, since
the principal dissent accuses the Court of being blind to the facts
of this case, post, at 20 (opinion of Kagan, J.), I recount
facts that I find particularly salient.

															     The town of Greece is a
municipality in upstate New York that borders the city of
Rochester. The town decided to emulate a practice long established
in Congress and state legislatures by having a brief prayer before
sessions of the town board. The task of lining up clergy members
willing to provide such a prayer was given to the town’s
office of constituent services. 732 F. Supp. 2d 195,
197–198 (WDNY 2010). For the first four years of the
practice, a clerical employee in the office would randomly call
religious organizations listed in the Greece “Community
Guide,” a local directory published by the Greece Chamber of
Commerce, until she was able to find somebody willing to give the
invocation. Id., at 198. This employee eventu-ally began keeping a
list of individuals who had agreed to give the invocation, and when
a second clerical employee took over the task of finding
prayer-givers, the first employee gave that list to the second.
Id., at 198, 199. The second employee then randomly called
organizations on that list—and possibly others in the
Community Guide—until she found someone who agreed to provide
the prayer. Id., at 199.

															     Apparently, all the
houses of worship listed in the local Community Guide were
Christian churches. Id., at 198–200, 203. That is
unsurprising given the small number of non-Christians in the area.
Although statistics for the town of Greece alone do not seem to be
available, statistics have been compiled for Monroe County, which
includes both the town of Greece and the city of Rochester.
According to these statistics, of the county residents who have a
religious affiliation, about 3% are Jewish, and for other
non-Christian faiths, the percentages are smaller.[ 1 ] There are no synagogues within the borders
of the town of Greece, id., at 203, but there are several not far
away across the Rochester border. Presumably, Jewish residents of
the town worship at one or more of those synagogues, but because
these synagogues fall outside the town’s borders, they were
not listed in the town’s local directory, and the responsible
town employee did not include them on her list. Ibid. Nor did she
include any other non-Christian house of worship. Id., at
198–200.[ 2 ]

															     As a result of this
procedure, for some time all the prayers at the beginning of town
board meetings were offered by Christian clergy, and many of these
prayers were distinctively Christian. But respondents do not claim
that the list was attributable to religious bias or favoritism, and
the Court of Appeals acknowledged that the town had “no
religious animus.” 681 F. 3d 20, 32 (CA2 2012).

															     For some time, the
town’s practice does not appear to have elicited any
criticism, but when complaints were received, the town made it
clear that it would permit any interested residents, including
nonbelievers, to provide an invocation, and the town has never
refused a request to offer an invocation. Id., at 23, 25; 732 F.
Supp. 2d, at 197. The most recent list in the record of persons
available to provide an invocation includes representatives of many
non-Christian faiths. App. in No. 10–3635 (CA2), pp.
A1053–A1055 (hereinafter CA2 App.).

															     Meetings of the Greece
Town Board appear to have been similar to most other town council
meetings across the country. The prayer took place at the beginning
of the meetings. The board then conducted what might be termed the
“legislative” portion of its agenda, during which
residents were permitted to address the board. After this portion
of the meeting, a separate stage of the meetings was devoted to
such matters as formal requests for variances. See Brief for
Respondents 5–6; CA2 App. A929–A930; e.g., CA2 App.
A1058, A1060.

															     No prayer occurred
before this second part of the proceedings, and therefore I do not
understand this case to involve the constitutionality of a prayer
prior to what may be characterized as an adjudicatory proceeding.
The prayer preceded only the portion of the town board meeting that
I view as essentially legislative. While it is true that the
matters considered by the board during this initial part of the
meeting might involve very specific questions, such as the
installation of a traffic light or stop sign at a particular
intersection, that does not transform the nature of this part of
the meeting.

															II

															     I turn now to the
narrow aspect of the principal dissent, and what we find here is
that the principal dissent’s objection, in the end, is really
quite niggling. According to the principal dissent, the town could
have avoided any constitutional problem in either of two ways.

															A

															     First, the principal
dissent writes, “[i]f the Town Board had let its chaplains
know that they should speak in nonsectarian terms, common to
diverse religious groups, then no one would have valid grounds for
complaint.” Post, at 18–19. “Priests and
ministers, rabbis and imams,” the principal dissent
continues, “give such invocations all the time” without
any great difficulty. Post, at 19.

															     Both Houses of Congress
now advise guest chaplains that they should keep in mind that they
are addressing members from a variety of faith traditions, and as a
matter of policy, this advice has much to recommend it. But any
argument that nonsectarian prayer is constitutionally required runs
headlong into a long history of contrary congressional practice.
From the beginning, as the Court notes, many Christian prayers were
offered in the House and Senate, see ante, at 7, and when rabbis
and other non-Christian clergy have served as guest chaplains,
their prayers have often been couched in terms particular to their
faith traditions.[ 3 ]

															     Not only is there no
historical support for the proposition that only generic prayer is
allowed, but as our country has become more diverse, composing a
prayer that is acceptable to all members of the community who hold
religious beliefs has become harder and harder. It was one thing to
compose a prayer that is acceptable to both Christians and Jews; it
is much harder to compose a prayer that is also acceptable to
followers of Eastern religions that are now well represented in
this country. Many local clergy may find the project daunting, if
not impossible, and some may feel that they cannot in good faith
deliver such a vague prayer.

															     In addition, if a town
attempts to go beyond simply recommending that a guest chaplain
deliver a prayer that is broadly acceptable to all members of a
particular community (and the groups represented in different
communities will vary), the town will inevitably encounter
sensitive problems. Must a town screen and, if necessary, edit
prayers before they are given? If prescreening is not required,
must the town review prayers after they are delivered in order to
determine if they were sufficiently generic? And if a guest
chaplain crosses the line, what must the town do? Must the chaplain
be corrected on the spot? Must the town strike this chaplain (and
perhaps his or her house of worship) from the approved list?

															B

															     If a town wants to
avoid the problems associated with this first option, the principal
dissent argues, it has another choice: It may “invit[e]
clergy of many faiths.” Post, at 19. “When one month a
clergy member refers to Jesus, and the next to Allah or
Jehovah,” the principal dissent explains, “the
government does not identify itself with one religion or align
itself with that faith’s citizens, and the effect of even
sectarian prayer is transformed.” Ibid.

															     If, as the principal
dissent appears to concede, such a rotating system would obviate
any constitutional problems, then despite all its high rhetoric,
the principal dissent’s quarrel with the town of Greece
really boils down to this: The town’s clerical employees did
a bad job in compiling the list of potential guest chaplains. For
that is really the only difference between what the town did and
what the principal dissent is willing to accept. The Greece
clerical employee drew up her list using the town directory instead
of a directory covering the entire greater Rochester area. If the
task of putting together the list had been handled in a more
sophisticated way, the employee in charge would have realized that
the town’s Jewish residents attended synagogues on the
Rochester side of the border and would have added one or more
synagogues to the list. But the mistake was at worst careless, and
it was not done with a discriminatory intent. (I would view this
case very differently if the omission of these synagogues were
intentional.)

															     The informal, imprecise
way in which the town lined up guest chaplains is typical of the
way in which many things are done in small and medium-sized units
of local government. In such places, the members of the governing
body almost always have day jobs that occupy much of their time.
The town almost never has a legal office and instead relies for
legal advice on a local attorney whose practice is likely to center
on such things as land-use regulation, contracts, and torts. When a
municipality like the town of Greece seeks in good faith to emulate
the congressional practice on which our holding in Marsh v.
Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983), was largely based, that
municipality should not be held to have violated the Constitution
sim-ply because its method of recruiting guest chaplains lacks the
demographic exactitude that might be regarded as optimal.

															     The effect of requiring
such exactitude would be to pressure towns to forswear altogether
the practice of having a prayer before meetings of the town
council. Many local officials, puzzled by our often puzzling
Establishment Clause jurisprudence and terrified of the legal fees
that may result from a lawsuit claiming a constitutional violation,
already think that the safest course is to ensure that local
government is a religion-free zone. Indeed, the Court of
Appeals’ opinion in this case advised towns that
constitutional difficulties “may well prompt municipalities
to pause and think carefully before adopting legislative
prayer.” 681 F. 3d, at 34. But if, as precedent and
historic practice make clear (and the principal dissent concedes),
prayer before a legislative session is not inherently inconsistent
with the First Amendment, then a unit of local government should
not be held to have violated the First Amendment simply because its
procedure for lining up guest chaplains does not comply in all
respects with what might be termed a “best practices”
standard.

															III

															     While the principal
dissent, in the end, would demand no more than a small modification
in the procedure that the town of Greece initially followed, much
of the rhetoric in that opinion sweeps more broadly. Indeed, the
logical thrust of many of its arguments is that prayer is never
permissible prior to meetings of local government legislative
bodies. At Greece Town Board meetings, the principal dissent
pointedly notes, ordinary citizens (and even children!) are often
present. Post, at 10–11. The guest chaplains stand in front
of the room facing the public. “[T]he setting is
intimate,” and ordinary citizens are permitted to speak and
to ask the board to address problems that have a direct effect on
their lives. Post, at 11. The meetings are “occasions for
ordinary citizens to engage with and petition their government,
often on highly individualized matters.” Post, at 9. Before a
session of this sort, the principal dissent argues, any prayer that
is not acceptable to all in attendance is out of bounds.

															     The features of Greece
meetings that the principal dissent highlights are by no means
unusual.[ 4 ] It is common for
residents to attend such meetings, either to speak on matters on
the agenda or to request that the town address other issues that
are important to them. Nor is there anything unusual about the
occasional attendance of students, and when a prayer is given at
the beginning of such a meeting, I expect that the chaplain
generally stands at the front of the room and faces the public. To
do otherwise would probably be seen by many as rude. Fi-nally,
although the principal dissent, post, at 13, attaches importance to
the fact that guest chaplains in the town of Greece often began
with the words “Let us pray,” that is also commonplace
and for many clergy, I suspect, almost reflexive.[ 5 ] In short, I see nothing out of the
ordinary about any of the features that the principal dissent
notes. Therefore, if prayer is not allowed at meetings with those
characteristics, local government legislative bodies, unlike their
national and state counterparts, cannot begin their meetings with a
prayer. I see no sound basis for drawing such a distinction.

															IV

															     The principal dissent
claims to accept the Court’s decision in Marsh v. Chambers,
which upheld the constitutionality of the Nebraska
Legislature’s practice of prayer at the beginning of
legislative sessions, but the principal dissent’s acceptance
of Marsh appears to be predicated on the view that the prayer at
issue in that case was little more than a formality to which the
legislators paid scant attention. The principal dissent describes
this scene: A session of the state legislature begins with or
without most members present; a strictly nonsectarian prayer is
recited while some legislators remain seated; and few members of
the public are exposed to the experience. Post, at 8–9. This
sort of perfunctory and hidden-away prayer, the principal dissent
implies, is all that Marsh and the First Amendment can
tolerate.

															     It is questionable
whether the principal dissent accurately describes the Nebraska
practice at issue in Marsh,[ 6 ]
but what is important is not so much what happened in Nebraska in
the years prior to Marsh, but what happened before congressional
sessions during the period leading up to the adoption of the First
Amendment. By that time, prayer before legislative sessions already
had an impressive pedigree, and it is important to recall that
history and the events that led to the adoption of the
practice.

															     The principal dissent
paints a picture of “morning in Nebraska” circa 1983,
see post, at 9, but it is more instructive to consider
“morning in Philadelphia,” September 1774. The First
Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, and the need for the
13 colonies to unite was imperative. But “[m]any things set
colony apart from colony,” and prominent among these sources
of division was religion.[ 7 ]
“Purely as a practical matter,” however, the project of
bringing the colonies together required that these divisions be
overcome.[ 8 ]

															     Samuel Adams sought to
bridge these differences by prodding a fellow Massachusetts
delegate to move to open the session with a prayer.[ 9 ] As John Adams later recounted, this motion
was opposed on the ground that the dele-gates were “so
divided in religious sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers,
some Anabaptists, somePresbyterians, and some Congregationalists,
that [they] could not join in the same act of
worship.”[ 10 ] In
response, Samuel Adams proclaimed that “he was no bigot, and
could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was
at the same time a friend to his country.”[ 11 ] Putting aside his personal
prejudices,[ 12 ] he moved to
invite a local Anglican minister, Jacob Duché, to lead the
first prayer.[ 13 ]

															     The following morning,
Duché appeared in full “pontifi-cals” and
delivered both the Anglican prayers for the day and an
extemporaneous prayer.[ 14 ]
For many of the delegates—members of religious groups that
had come to America to escape persecution in
Britain—listening to a distinctively Anglican prayer by a
minister of the Church of England represented an act of notable
ecumenism. But Duché’s prayer met with wide
approval—John Adams wrote that it “filled the bosom of
every man” in attendance[ 15 ]—and the practice was continued. This first
congressional prayer was emphatically Christian, and it was neither
an empty formality nor strictly nondenominational.[ 16 ] But one of its purposes, and presumably
one of itseffects, was not to divide, but to unite.

															     It is no wonder, then,
that the practice of beginning congressional sessions with a prayer
was continued after the Revolution ended and the new Constitution
was adopted. One of the first actions taken by the new Congress
when it convened in 1789 was to appoint chaplains for both Houses.
The first Senate chaplain, an Episcopa-lian, was appointed on April
25, 1789, and the first House chaplain, a Presbyterian, was
appointed on May 1.[ 17 ]
Three days later, Madison announced that he planned to introduce
proposed constitutional amendments to protect individual rights; on
June 8, 1789, those amendments were introduced; and on September
26, 1789, the amendments were approved to be sent to the States for
ratification.[ 18 ] In the
years since the adoption of the First Amendment, the practice of
prayer before sessions of the House and Senate has continued, and
opening prayers from a great variety of faith traditions have been
offered.      This Court has often noted that
actions taken by the First Congress are presumptively consistent
with the Bill of Rights, see, e.g., Harmelin v. Michigan, 501
U. S. 957, 980 (1991) , Carroll v. United States, 267
U. S. 132 –152 (1925), and this principle has special
force when it comes to the interpretation of the Establishment
Clause. This Court has always purported to base its Establishment
Clause decisions on the original meaning of that provision. Thus,
in Marsh, when the Court was called upon to decide whether prayer
prior to sessions of a state legislature was consistent with the
Establishment Clause, we relied heavily on the history of prayer
before sessions of Congress and held that a state legislature may
follow a similar practice. See 463 U. S., at
786–792.

															     There can be little
doubt that the decision in Marsh reflected the original
understanding of the First Amendment. It is virtually inconceivable
that the First Congress, having appointed chaplains whose
responsibilities prominently included the delivery of prayers at
the beginning of each daily session, thought that this practice was
inconsistent with the Establishment Clause. And since this practice
was well established and undoubtedly well known, it seems equally
clear that the state legislatures that ratified the First Amendment
had the same understanding. In the case before us, the Court of
Appeals appeared to base its decision on one of the Establishment
Clause “tests” set out in the opinions of this Court,
see 681 F. 3d, at 26, 30, but if there is any inconsistency
between any of those tests and the historic practice of legislative
prayer, the inconsistency calls into question the validity of the
test, not the historic practice.

															V

															     This brings me to my
final point. I am troubled by the message that some readers may
take from the principal dissent’s rhetoric and its highly
imaginative hypotheticals. For example, the principal dissent
conjures up the image of a litigant awaiting trial who is asked by
the presiding judge to rise for a Christian prayer, of an official
at a polling place who conveys the expectation that citizens
wishing to vote make the sign of the cross before casting their
ballots, and of an immigrant seeking naturalization who is asked to
bow her head and recite a Christianprayer. Although I do not
suggest that the implication is intentional, I am concerned that at
least some readers will take these hypotheticals as a warning that
this is where today’s decision leads—to a country in
which religious minorities are denied the equal benefits of
citizenship.

															     Nothing could be
further from the truth. All that the Court does today is to allow a
town to follow a practice that we have previously held is
permissible for Congress and state legislatures. In seeming to
suggest otherwise, the principal dissent goes far astray. Notes 1 See Assn. of
Statisticians of Am. Religious Bodies, C. Grammich et al.,
2010 U. S. Religion Census: Religious Congregations &
Membership Study 400–401 (2012). 2 It appears that there is
one non-Christian house of worship, a Buddhist temple, within the
town’s borders, but it was not listed in the town directory.
732 F. Supp. 2d, at 203. Although located within the
town’s borders, the temple has a Rochester mailing address.
And while the respondents “each lived in the Town more than
thirty years, neither was personally familiar with any mosques,
synagogues, temples, or other non-Christian places of worship
within the Town.” ., at 197. 3 For example, when a rabbi
first delivered a prayer at a session of the House of
Representatives in 1860, he appeared “in full rabbinic dress,
‘piously bedecked in a white tallit and a large velvet
skullcap,’ ” and his prayer “invoked several
uniquely Jewish themes and repeated the Biblical priestly blessing
in Hebrew.” See Brief for Nathan Lewin as 9.Many other rabbis
have given distinctively Jewish prayers, ., at 10, and n. 3,
and distinctively Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu prayers have also
been delivered, see , at 10–11. 4 See, ., prayer practice
of Saginaw City Council in Michigan, described in Letter from
Freedom from Religion Foundation to City Manager, Saginaw City
Council (Jan. 31, 2014), online at
http://media.mlive.com / saginawnews_impact  / other  / Saginaw % 20prayer%20at%20meetings%20letter.pdf
(all Internet materials as visited May 2, 2014, and available in
Clerk of Court’s case file); prayer practice of Cobb County
commissions in Georgia, described in v. 410 F. Supp. 2d 1324 (ND
Ga. 2006). 5 For example, at the most
recent Presidential inauguration, a minister faced the assembly of
onlookers on the National Mall and began with those very words. 159
Cong. Rec. S183, S186 (Jan. 22, 2013). 6 See generally Brief for
Robert E. Palmer as (Ne-braska Legislature chaplain at issue in );
, , at 11 (describing his prayers as routinely referring “to
Christ, the Bible, [and] holy days”). See also v. , 504 F.
Supp. 585, 590, n. 12 (Neb. 1980) (“A rule of the Nebraska
Legislature requires that ‘every member shall be present
within the Legislative Chamber during the meetings of the
Legislature . . . unless excused
. . . .’ Unless the excuse for nonattendance
is deemed sufficient by the legislature, the ‘presence of any
member may be compelled, if necessary, by sending the Sergeant at
Arms’ ” (alterations in original)). 7 G. Wills, Inventing
America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence 46
(1978). 8 N. Cousins, In God We
Trust: The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding
Fathers 4–5, 13 (1958). 9 M. Puls, Samuel
Adams: Father of the American Revolution 160 (2006). 10 Letter to Abigail Adams (Sept. 16,
1774), in C. Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams and His
Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution 37 (1876). 11 12 See
G. Wills, , at 46; J. Miller, Sam Adams 85, 87 (1936);
I. Stoll, Samuel Adams: A Life 7, 134–135
(2008). 13 C. Adams, , at 37. 14 15 ; see
W. Wells, 2 The Life and Public Services of SamuelAdams
222–223 (1865); J. Miller, at 320; E. Burnett, The
Continental Congress 40 (1941); M. Puls, , at
161. 16 First
Prayer of the Continental Congress, 1774, online at
http://chaplain.house.gov/archive/continental.html. 17 1
Annals of Cong. 24–25 (1789); R. Cord, Separation of Church
and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction 23
(1982). 18 1
Annals of Cong. 247, 424; R. Labunski, James Madison and the
Struggle for the Bill of Rights 240–241 (2006). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–696

															_________________

															TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK, PETITIONER v.SUSAN
GALLOWAY et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 5, 2014]

															     Justice Thomas, with
whom Justice Scalia joins asto Part II, concurring in part and
concurring in thejudgment.

															     Except for Part
II–B, I join the opinion of the Court, which faithfully
applies Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983) . I write
separately to reiterate my view that the Establishment Clause is
“best understood as a federalism provision,” Elk Grove
Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U. S. 1, 50 (2004)
(Thomas, J., concurring in judgment), and to state my understanding
of the proper “coercion” analysis.

															I

															     The Establishment
Clause provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of religion.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 1. As
I have explained before, the text and history of the Clause
“resis[t] incorporation” against the States. Newdow,
supra, at 45–46; see also Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U. S.
677 –693 (2005) (Thomas, J., concurring); Zelman v.
Simmons-Harris, 536 U. S. 639 –680 (2002) (same). If the
Establishment Clause is not incorporated, then it has no
application here, where only municipal action is at issue.

															     As an initial matter,
the Clause probably prohibits Congress from establishing a national
religion. Cf. D. Drakeman, Church, State, and Original Intent
260–262 (2010). The text of the Clause also suggests that
Congress “could not interfere with state establishments,
notwithstanding any argument that could be made based on
Congress’ power under the Necessary and Proper Clause.”
Newdow, supra, at 50 (opinion of Thomas, J.). The language of the
First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law”)
“precisely tracked and inverted the exact wording” of
the Necessary and Proper Clause (“Congress shall have power
. . . to make all laws which shall be necessary and
proper . . . ”), which was the subject of fierce
criticism by Anti-Federalists at the time of ratification. A. Amar,
The Bill of Rights 39 (1998) (hereinafter Amar); see also Natelson,
The Framing and Adoption of the Necessary and Proper Clause, in The
Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause 84, 94–96 (G.
Lawson, G. Miller, R. Natelson,& G. Seidman eds. 2010)
(summarizing Anti-Federalist claims that the Necessary and Proper
Clause would aggrandize the powers of the Federal Government). That
choice of language—“Congress shall make no
law”—effectively denied Congress any power to regulate
state establishments.

															     Construing the
Establishment Clause as a federalism provision accords with the
variety of church-state arrangements that existed at the Founding.
At least six States had established churches in 1789. Amar
32–33. New England States like Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and New Hampshire maintained local-rule establishments whereby the
majority in each town could select the minister and religious
denomination (usually Congregationalism, or
“Puritanism”). McConnell, Establishment and
Disestablishment at the Founding, Part I: Establishment of
Religion, 44 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 2105, 2110 (2003); see
also L. Levy, The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First
Amendment 29–51 (1994) (hereinafter Levy). In the South,
Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia eliminated their exclusive
Anglican establishments following the American Revolution and
adopted general establishments, which permitted taxation in support
of all Christian churches (or, as in South Carolina, all Protestant
churches). See Levy 52–58; Amar 32–33. Virginia, by
contrast, had recently abolished its official state establishment
and ended direct government funding of clergy after a legislative
battle led by James Madison. See T. Buckley, Church and State in
Revolutionary Virginia, 1776–1787, pp. 155–164 (1977).
Other States—principally Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and
Delaware, which were founded by religious dissenters—had no
history of formal establishments at all, although they still
maintained religious tests for office. See McConnell, The Origins
and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103
Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1425–1426, 1430 (1990).

															     The import of this
history is that the relationship between church and state in the
fledgling Republic was far from settled at the time of
ratification. See Muñoz, The Original Meaning of the
Establishment Clause and the Impossibility of Its Incorporation, 8
U. Pa. J. Constitutional L. 585, 605 (2006). Although the
remaining state establishments were ultimately
dismantled—Massachusetts, the last State to disestablish,
would do so in 1833, see Levy 42—that outcome was far from
assured when the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. That lack of
consensus suggests that the First Amendment was simply agnostic on
the subject of state establishments; the decision to establish or
disestablish religion was reserved to the States. Amar 41.

															     The Federalist logic of
the original Establishment Clause poses a special barrier to its
mechanical incorporation against the States through the Fourteenth
Amendment. See id., at 33. Unlike the Free Exercise Clause, which
“plainly protects individuals against congressional
interference with the right to exercise their religion,” the
Establishment Clause “does not purport to protect individual
rights.” Newdow, 542 U. S., at 50 (opinion of Thomas,
J.). Instead, the States are the particular beneficiaries of the
Clause. Incorporation therefore gives rise to a paradoxical result:
Applying the Clause against the States eliminates their right to
establish a religion free from federal interference, thereby
“prohibit[ing] exactly what the Establishment Clause
protected.” Id., at 51; see Amar 33–34.

															     Put differently, the
structural reasons that counsel against incorporating the Tenth
Amendment also apply to the Establishment Clause. Id., at 34. To my
knowledge, no court has ever suggested that the Tenth Amendment,
which “reserve[s] to the States” powers not delegated
to the Federal Government, could or should be applied against the
States. To incorporate that limitation would be to divest the
States of all powers not specifically delegated to them, thereby
inverting the original import of the Amendment. Incorporating the
Establishment Clause has precisely the same effect.

															     The most cogent
argument in favor of incorporation may be that, by the time of
Reconstruction, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had come to
reinterpret the Establishment Clause (notwithstanding its
Federalist origins) as expressing an individual right. On this
question, historical evidence from the 1860’s is mixed.
Congressmen who catalogued the personal rights protected by the
First Amendment commonly referred to speech, press, petition, and
assembly, but not to a personal right of nonestablishment; instead,
they spoke only of “ ‘free
exercise’ ” or “ ‘freedom of
conscience.’ ” Amar 253, and 385, n. 91
(collecting sources). There may be reason to think these lists were
abbreviated, and silence on the issue is not dispositive. See Lash,
The Second Adoption of the Establishment Clause: The Rise of the
Nonestablishment Principle, 27 Ariz. St. L. J. 1085,
1141–1145 (1995); but cf. S. Smith, Foreordained Failure: The
Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom
50–52 (1995). Given the textual and logical difficulties
posed by incorporation, however, there is no warrant for
transforming the meaning of the Establishment Clause without a firm
historical foundation. See Newdow, supra, at 51 (opinion of Thomas,
J.). The burden of persuasion therefore rests with those who claim
that the Clause assumed a different meaning upon adoption of the
Fourteenth Amendment.[ 1 ]

															II

															     Even if the
Establishment Clause were properly incorporated against the States,
the municipal prayers at issue in this case bear no resemblance to
the coercive state establishments that existed at the founding.
“The coercion that was a hallmark of historical
establishments of religion was coercion of religious orthodoxy and
of financial support by force of law and threat of penalty.”
Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 640 (1992) (Scalia, J.,
dissent-ing); see also Perry, 545 U. S., at 693–694
(Thomas, J., concurring); Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709,
729 (2005) (Thomas, J., concurring); Newdow, supra, at 52 (opinion
of Thomas, J.). In a typical case, attendance at the established
church was mandatory, and taxes were levied to generate church
revenue. McConnell, Establishment and Disestablishment, at
2144–2146, 2152–2159. Dissenting ministers were barred
from preaching, and political participation was limited to members
of the established church. Id., at 2161–2168,
2176–2180.

															     This is not to say that
the state establishments in existence when the Bill of Rights was
ratified were uniform. As previously noted, establishments in the
South were typically governed through the state legislature or
State Constitution, while establishments in New England were
administered at the municipal level. See supra, at 2–3.
Notwithstanding these variations, both state and local forms of
establishment involved “actual legal coercion,” Newdow,
supra, at 52 (opinion of Thomas, J.): They exercised government
power in order to exact financial support of the church, compel
religious observance, or control religious doctrine.

															     None of these
founding-era state establishments remained at the time of
Reconstruction. But even assuming that the framers of the
Fourteenth Amendment reconceived the nature of the Establishment
Clause as a constraint on the States, nothing in the history of the
intervening period suggests a fundamental transformation in their
understanding of what constituted an establishment. At a minimum,
there is no support for the proposition that the framers of the
Fourteenth Amendment embraced wholly modern notions that the
Establishment Clause is violated whenever the “reasonable
observer” feels “subtle pressure,” ante, at 18,
19, or perceives governmental “endors[ement],” ante, at
5–6. For example, of the 37 States in existence when the
Fourteenth Amendment was rati-fied, 27 State Constitutions
“contained an explicit reference to God in their
preambles.” Calabresi & Agudo, Individual Rights Under
State Constitutions When the Fourteenth Amendment Was Ratified in
1868: What Rights Are Deeply Rooted in American History and
Tradition?, 87 Tex. L. Rev. 7, 12, 37 (2008). In addition to
the preamble references, 30 State Constitutions contained other
references to the divine, using such phrases as
“ ‘Almighty God,’ ”
“ ‘[O]ur Creator,’ ” and
“ ‘Sovereign Ruler of the
Universe.’ ” Id., at 37, 38, 39, n. 104. Moreover,
the state constitutional provisions that prohibited religious
“comp[ulsion]” made clear that the relevant sort of
compulsion was legal in nature, of the same type that had
characterized founding-era establishments.[ 2 ] These provisions strongly suggest that, whatever
nonestablishment principles existed in 1868, they included no
concern for the finer sensibilities of the “reasonable
observer.”

															     Thus, to the extent
coercion is relevant to the Establishment Clause analysis, it is
actual legal coercion that counts—not the “subtle
coercive pressures” allegedly felt by respondents in this
case, ante, at 9. The majority properly concludes that
“[o]ffense . . . does not equate to
coercion,” since “[a]dults often encounter speech they
find disagreeable[,] and an Establishment Clause violation is not
made out any time a person experiences a sense of affront from the
expression of contrary religious views in a legislative
forum.” Ante, at 21. I would simply add, in light of the
foregoing history of the Establishment Clause, that “[p]eer
pressure, unpleasant as it may be, is not coercion” either.
Newdow, 542 U. S., at 49 (opinion of Thomas, J.). Notes 1 This Court has never
squarely addressed these barriers to the incorporation of the
Establishment Clause. When the issue was first presented in v. , ,
the Court casually asserted that “the [has been] interpreted
to make the prohibitions of the First applicable to state action
abridging religious freedom. There is every reason to give the same
application and broad interpretation to the ‘establishment of
religion’ clause.” , at 15 (footnote omitted). The
cases the Court cited in support of that proposition involved the
Free Exercise Clause—which had been incorporated seven years
earlier, in v. , —not the Establishment Clause. 330 U. S., at
15, n. 22 (collecting cases). Thus, in the space of a single
paragraph and a nonresponsive string citation, the Court glibly
effected a sea change in constitutional law. The Court’s
inattention to these doctrinal questions might be explained,
although not excused, by the rise of popular conceptions about
“separation of church and state” as an
“American” constitutional right. See generally P.
Hamburger, Separation of Church and State 454–463 (2002); see
also at 391–454 (discussing the role of nativist sentiment in
the campaign for “separation” as an American
ideal). 2 See, , Del. Const., Art.
I, §1 (1831) (“[N]o man shall, or ought to be compelled
to attend any religious worship, to contribute to the erection or
support of any place of worship, or to the maintenance of any
ministry, against his own free will and consent”); Me.
Const., Art. I, §3 (1820) (“[N]o one shall be hurt,
molested or restrained in his person, liberty or estate, for
worshiping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the
dictates of his own conscience”); Mo. Const., Art. I,
§10 (1865) (“[N]o person can be compelled to erect,
support, or attend any place of worship, or maintain any minister
of the Gospel or teacher of religion”); R. I. Const., Art. I,
§3 (1842) (“[N]o man shall be compelled to frequent or
to support any religious worship, place, or ministry what-ever,
except in fulfillment of his own voluntary contract”); Vt.
Const., Ch. I, §3 (1777) (“[N]o man ought, or of right
can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect, or
support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to
the dictates of his conscience”). SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–696

															_________________

															TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK, PETITIONER v.SUSAN
GALLOWAY et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 5, 2014]

															     Justice Breyer,
dissenting.

															     As we all recognize,
this is a “fact-sensitive” case. Ante, at 19 (opinion
of Kennedy, J.); see also post, at 20 (Kagan, J., dissenting); 681
F. 3d 20, 34 (CA2 2012) (explaining that the Court of
Appeals’ holding follows from the “totality of the
circumstances”). The Court of Appeals did not believe that
the Constitution forbids legislative prayers that incorporate
content associated with a particular denomination. Id., at 28.
Rather, the court’s holding took that content into account
simply because it indicated that the town had not followed a
sufficiently inclusive “prayer-giver selection
process.” Id., at 30. It also took into account related
“actions (and inactions) of prayer-givers and town
officials.” Ibid. Those actions and inactions included (1) a
selection process that led to the selection of “clergy almost
exclusively from places of worship located within the town’s
borders,” despite the likelihood that significant numbers of
town residents were members of congregations that gather just
outside those borders; (2) a failure to “infor[m] members of
the general public that volunteers” would be acceptable
prayer givers; and (3) a failure to “infor[m] prayer-givers
that invocations were not to be exploited as an effort to convert
others to the partic-ular faith of the invocational speaker, nor to
disparageany faith or belief different than that of the
invoca-tional speaker.” Id., at 31–32 (internal
quotation marks omitted).

															     The Court of Appeals
further emphasized what it was not holding. It did not hold that
“the town may not open its public meetings with a
prayer,” or that “any prayers offered in this context
must be blandly ‘nonsectarian.’ ” Id., at
33. In essence, the Court of Appeals merely held that the town must
do more than it had previously done to try to make its prayer
practices inclusive of other faiths. And it did not prescribe a
single constitutionally required method for doing so.

															     In my view, the Court
of Appeals’ conclusion and its reasoning are convincing.
Justice Kagan’s dissent is consistent with that view, and I
join it. I also here emphasize several factors that I believe
underlie the conclusion that, on the particular facts of this case,
the town’s prayer practice violated the Establishment
Clause.

															     First, Greece is a
predominantly Christian town, but it is not exclusively so. A map
of the town’s houses of worship introduced in the District
Court shows many Christian churches within the town’s limits.
It also shows a Buddhist temple within the town and several Jewish
synagogues just outside its borders, in the adjacent city of
Rochester, New York. Id., at 24. Yet during the more than 120
monthly meetings at which prayers were delivered during the record
period (from 1999 to 2010), only four prayers were delivered by
non-Christians. And all of these occurred in 2008, shortly after
the plaintiffs began complaining about the town’s Christian
prayer practice and nearly a decade after that practice had
commenced. See post, at 14, 21.

															     To be precise: During
2008, two prayers were delivered by a Jewish layman, one by the
chairman of a Baha’i congregation, and one by a Wiccan
priestess. The Jewish and Wiccan prayer givers were invited only
after they reached out to the town to inquire about giving an
invoca-tion. The town apparently invited the Baha’i chairman
on its own initiative. The inclusivity of the 2008 meetings, which
contrasts starkly with the exclusively single-denomination prayers
every year before and after, is commendable. But the Court of
Appeals reasonably de-cided not to give controlling weight to that
inclusivity, for it arose only in response to the complaints that
presaged this litigation, and it did not continue into the
following years.

															     Second,
     the town made no significant effort to
inform the area’s non-Christian houses of worship about the
possibility of delivering an opening prayer. See post, at 21.
Beginning in 1999, when it instituted its practice of opening its
monthly board meetings with prayer, Greece selected prayer givers
as follows: Initially, the town’s employees invited clergy
from each religious organization listed in a “Community
Guide” published by the Greece Chamber of Commerce. After
that, the town kept a list of clergy who had accepted invitations
and reinvited those clergy to give prayers at future meetings. From
time to time, the town supplemented this list in response to
requests from citizens and to new additions to the Community Guide
and a town newspaper called the Greece Post.

															     The plaintiffs do not
argue that the town intentionally discriminated against
non-Christians when choosing whom to invite, 681 F. 3d, at 26, and
the town claims, plausibly, that it would have allowed anyone who
asked to give an invocation to do so. Rather, the evident reasons
why the town consistently chose Christian prayer givers are that
the Buddhist and Jewish temples mentioned above were not listed in
the Community Guide or the Greece Post and that the town limited
its list of clergy almost exclusively to representatives of houses
of worship situated within Greece’s town limits (again, the
Buddhist temple on the map was within those limits, but the
synagogues were just outside them). Id., at 24, 31.

															     Third, in this context,
the fact that nearly all of the prayers given reflected a single
denomination takes on significance. That significance would have
been the same had all the prayers been Jewish, or Hindu, or
Buddhist, or of any other denomination. The significance is that,
in a context where religious minorities exist and where more could
easily have been done to include their participation, the town
chose to do nothing. It could, for example, have posted its policy
of permitting anyone to give an invocation on its website,
greeceny.gov, which provides dates and times of upcoming town board
meetings along with minutes of prior meetings. It could have
announced inclusive policies at the beginning of its board
meetings, just before introducing the month’s prayer giver.
It could have provided information to those houses of worship of
all faiths that lie just outside its borders and include citizens
of Greece among their members. Given that the town could easily
have made these or similar efforts but chose not to, the fact that
all of the prayers (aside from the 2008 outliers) were given by
adherents of a single religion reflects a lack of effort to include
others. And that is what I take to be a major point of Justice
Kagan’s related discussion. See post, at 2–4, 9,
14–15, 21–23.

															     Fourth, the fact that
the board meeting audience included citizens with business to
conduct also contributes to the importance of making more of an
effort to include members of other denominations. It does not,
however, automatically change the nature of the meeting from one
where an opening prayer is permissible under the Establishment
Clause to one where it is not. Cf. post, at 8–14,
16–17, 20.

															     Fifth, it is not
normally government’s place to rewrite, to parse, or to
critique the language of particular prayers. And it is always
possible that members of one religious group will find that prayers
of other groups (or perhaps even a moment of silence) are not
compatible with their faith. Despite this risk, the Constitution
does not forbid opening prayers. But neither does the Constitution
forbid efforts to explain to those who give the prayers the nature
of the occasion and the audience.

															     The U. S. House of
Representatives, for example, provides its guest chaplains with the
following guidelines, which are designed to encourage the sorts of
prayer that are consistent with the purpose of an invocation for a
government body in a religiously pluralistic Nation:

															“The guest chaplain should keep in mind
that the House of Representatives is comprised of Members of many
different faith traditions.

															“The length of the prayer should not
exceed 150 words.

															“The prayer must be free from personal
political views or partisan politics, from sectarian controversies,
and from any intimations pertaining to foreign or domestic
policy.” App. to Brief for Respondents 2a.

															The town made no effort to promote a similarly
inclusive prayer practice here. See post, at 21–22.

															     As both the Court and
Justice Kagan point out, we are a Nation of many religions. Ante,
at 10–11; post, at 1–2, 18. And the
Constitution’s Religion Clauses seek to “protec[t] the
Nation’s social fabric from religious conflict.” Zelman
v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U. S. 639, 717 (2002) (Breyer, J.,
dissenting). The question in this case is whether the prayer
practice of the town of Greece, by doing too little to reflect the
religious diversity of its citizens, did too much, even if
unintentionally, to promote the “political division along
religious lines” that “was one of the principal evils
against which the First Amendment was intended to protect.”
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 622 (1971) .

															     In seeking an answer to
that fact-sensitive question, “I see no test-related
substitute for the exercise of legal judgment.” Van Orden v.
Perry, 545 U. S. 677, 700 (2005) (Breyer, J., concurring in
judgment). Having applied my legal judgment to the relevant facts,
I conclude, like Justice Kagan, that the town of Greece failed to
make reasonable efforts to include prayer givers of minority
faiths, with the result that, although it is a community of several
faiths, its prayer givers were almost exclusively persons of a
single faith. Under these circumstances, I would affirm the
judgment of the Court of Appeals that Greece’s prayer
practice violated the Establishment Clause.

															     I dissent from the
Court’s decision to the contrary. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

															_________________

															No. 12–696

															_________________

															TOWN OF GREECE, NEW YORK, PETITIONER v.SUSAN
GALLOWAY et al.

															on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit

															[May 5, 2014]

															     Justice Kagan, with
whom Justice Ginsburg, Jus-tice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor join,
dissenting.

															     For centuries now,
people have come to this country from every corner of the world to
share in the blessing of religious freedom. Our Constitution
promises that they may worship in their own way, without fear of
penalty or danger, and that in itself is a momentous offering. Yet
our Constitution makes a commitment still more
remarkable—that however those individuals worship, they will
countas full and equal American citizens. A Christian, a Jew,a
Muslim (and so forth)—each stands in the same re-lationship
with her country, with her state and localcommunities, and with
every level and body of government. So that when each person
performs the duties or seeks the benefits of citizenship, she does
so not as an adherent to one or another religion, but simply as an
American.

															     I respectfully dissent
from the Court’s opinion because I think the Town of
Greece’s prayer practices violate that norm of religious
equality—the breathtakingly generous constitutional idea that
our public institutions belong no less to the Buddhist or Hindu
than to the Methodist or Episcopalian. I do not contend that
principle translates here into a bright separationist line. To the
contrary, I

															agree with the Court’s decision in Marsh
v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 (1983) , upholding the Nebraska
Legislature’s tra-dition of beginning each session with a
chaplain’s prayer. And I believe that pluralism and inclusion
in a town hall can satisfy the constitutional requirement of
neutrality; such a forum need not become a religion-free zone. But
still, the Town of Greece should lose this case. The practice at
issue here differs from the one sustained in Marsh because
Greece’s town meetings involve participation by ordinary
citizens, and the invocations given—directly to those
citizens—were predominantly sectarian in content. Still more,
Greece’s Board did nothing to recognize religious diversity:
In arranging for clergy members to open each meeting, the Town
never sought (except briefly when this suit was filed) to involve,
accommodate, or in any way reach out to adherents of non-Christian
religions. So month in and month out for over a decade, prayers
steeped in only one faith, addressed toward members of the public,
commenced meetings to discuss local affairs and distribute
government benefits. In my view, that practice does not square with
the First Amendment’s promise that every citizen,
irrespective of her religion, owns an equal share in her
government.

															I

															     To begin to see what
has gone wrong in the Town of Greece, consider several hypothetical
scenarios in which sectarian prayer—taken straight from this
case’s record—infuses governmental activities. None
involves, as this case does, a proceeding that could be
characterized as a legislative session, but they are useful to
elaborate some general principles. In each instance, assume (as was
true in Greece) that the invocation is given pursuant to government
policy and is representative of the prayers generally offered in
the designated setting:

															You are a party in a case going to trial;
let’s say you have filed suit against the government for
violating one of your legal rights. The judge bangs his gavel to
call the court to order, asks a minister to come to the front of
the room, and instructs the 10 or so individuals present to rise
for an opening prayer. The clergyman faces those in attendance and
says: “Lord, God of all creation, . . . . We
acknowledge the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. We
draw strength . . . from his resurrection at Easter.
Jesus Christ, who took away the sins of the world, destroyed our
death, through his dying and in his rising, he has restored our
life. Blessed are you, who has raised up the Lord Jesus, you who
will raise us, in our turn, and put us by His
side. . . . Amen.” App. 88a–89a. The
judge then asks your lawyer to begin the trial.

															It’s election day, and you head over to
your local polling place to vote. As you and others wait to give
your names and receive your ballots, an election official asks
everyone there to join him in prayer. He says: “We pray this
[day] for the guidance of the Holy Spirit as [we vote]
. . . . Let’s just say the Our Father
together. ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy
name; thy King-dom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in
Heaven. . . .’ ” Id., at 56a. And
after he concludes, he makes the sign of the cross, and appears to
wait expectantly for you and the other prospective voters to do so
too.

															You are an immigrant attending a naturalization
ceremony to finally become a citizen. The presiding official tells
you and your fellow applicants that before administering the oath
of allegiance, he would like a minister to pray for you and with
you. The pastor steps to the front of the room, asks everyone to
bow their heads, and recites: “[F]ather, son, and Holy
Spirit—it is with a due sense of reverence and awe that we
come before you [today] seeking your blessing
. . . . You are . . . a wise God, oh Lord,
. . . as evidenced even in the plan of redemption that is
fulfilled in Jesus Christ. We ask that you would give freely and
abundantly wisdom to one and to all. . . in the name of
the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who lives with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.” Id., at
99a–100a.

															I would hold that the government officials
responsible for the above practices—that is, for prayer
repeatedly invoking a single religion’s beliefs in these
settings—crossed a constitutional line. I have every
confidence the Court would agree. See ante, at 13 (Alito, J.,
concurring). And even Greece’s attorney conceded that
something like the first hypothetical (he was not asked about the
others) would violate the First Amendment. See Tr. of Oral Arg.
3–4. Why?

															     The reason, of course,
has nothing to do with Christian-ity as such. This opinion is full
of Christian prayers, be-cause those were the only invocations
offered in the Town of Greece. But if my hypotheticals involved the
prayer of some other religion, the outcome would be exactly the
same. Suppose, for example, that government officials in a
predominantly Jewish community asked a rabbi to begin all public
functions with a chanting of the Sh’ma and V’ahavta.
(“Hear O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is
One. . . . Bind [these words] as a sign upon your
hand; let them be a symbol before your eyes; inscribe them on the
doorposts of your house, and on your gates.”) Or assume
officials in a mostly Muslim town requested a muezzin to commence
such functions, over and over again, with a recitation of the
Adhan. (“God is greatest, God is greatest. I bear witness
that there is no deity but God. I bear witness that Muhammed is the
Messenger of God.”) In any instance, the question would be
why such government-sponsored prayer of a single religion goes
beyond the constitutional pale.

															     One glaring problem is
that the government in all these hypotheticals has aligned itself
with, and placed its imprimatur on, a particular religious creed.
“The clearest command of the Establishment Clause,”
this Court has held, “is that one religious denomination
cannot be offi-cially preferred over another.” Larson v.
Valente, 456 U. S. 228, 244 (1982) . Justices have often
differed about a further issue: whether and how the Clause applies
to governmental policies favoring religion (of all kinds) over
non-religion. Compare, e.g., McCreary County v. American Civil
Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U. S. 844, 860 (2005)
(“[T]he First Amendment mandates governmental neutrality
between . . . religion and nonreligion”), with, e.g., id., at
885 (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“[T]he Court’s oft
repeated assertion that the government cannot favor religious
practice [generally] is false”). But no one has disagreed
with this much:

															“[O]ur constitutional tradition,
from the Declaration of Independence and the first inaugural
address of Washington . . . down to the present day, has
. . . ruled out of order government-sponsored endorsement
of religion . . . where the endorsement is sectarian, in
the sense of specifying details upon which men and women who
believe in a benevolent, omnipotent Creatorand Ruler of the world
are known to differ (for example, the divinity of Christ).”
Lee v. Weisman, 505 U. S. 577, 641 (1992) (Scalia, J.,
dissenting).

															See also County of Allegheny v. American Civil
Liberties Union, Greater Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U. S. 573
(1989) (“Whatever else the Establishment Clause may
mean[,] . . . [it] means at the very least that
government may not demonstrate a preference for one particular sect
or creed (including a preference for Christianity over other
religions)”).[ 1 ] By
authorizing and overseeing prayersassociated with a single
religion—to the exclusion of all others—the government
officials in my hypotheticalcases (whether federal, state, or local
does not matter) have violated that foundational principle. They
have em-barked on a course of religious favoritism anathema to the
First Amendment.

															     And making matters
still worse: They have done so in a place where individuals come to
interact with, and partici-pate in, the institutions and processes
of their government. A person goes to court, to the polls, to a
naturalization ceremony—and a government official or his
hand-picked minister asks her, as the first order of
officialbusiness, to stand and pray with others in a way
conflicting with her own religious beliefs. Perhaps she feels
suffi-cient pressure to go along—to rise, bow her head, and
join in whatever others are saying: After all, she wants,very
badly, what the judge or poll worker or immigration official has to
offer. Or perhaps she is made of stronger mettle, and she opts not
to participate in what she does not believe—indeed, what
would, for her, be something like blasphemy. She then must make
known her dissent from the common religious view, and place herself
apart from other citizens, as well as from the officials
responsible for the invocations. And so a civic function of some
kind brings religious differences to the fore: That public
proceeding becomes (whether intentionally or not) an instrument for
dividing her from adherents to the community’s majority
religion, and for altering the very nature of her relationship with
her government.

															     That is not the country
we are, because that is not what our Constitution permits. Here,
when a citizen stands before her government, whether to perform a
service or request a benefit, her religious beliefs do not enter
into the picture. See Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Act for
Establishing Religious Freedom (Oct. 31, 1785), in 5 The
Founders’ Constitution 85 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds.
1987) (“[O]pinion[s] in matters of religion . . . shall in no
wise diminish, enlarge, or affect [our] civil capacities”).
The government she faces favors no particular religion, either by
word or by deed. And that government, in its various processes and
proceedings, imposes no religious tests on its citizens, sorts none
of them by faith, and permits no exclusion based on belief. When a
person goes to court, a polling place, or an immigration
proceeding—I could go on: to a zoning agency, a parole board
hearing, or the DMV—government officials do not engage in
sectarian worship, nor do they ask her to do likewise. They all
participate in the business of government not as Christians, Jews,
Muslims (and more), but only as Americans—none of them
different from any other for that civic purpose. Why not, then, at
a town meeting?

															II

															     In both
Greece’s and the majority’s view, everything I have
discussed is irrelevant here because this case involves “the
tradition of legislative prayer outlined” in Marsh v.
Chambers, 463 U. S. 783 . Ante, at 10. And before I dispute
the Town and Court, I want to give them their due: They are right
that, under Marsh, legislative prayer has a distinctive
constitutional warrant by virtue of tradition. As the Court today
describes, a long history, stretching back to the first session of
Congress (when chaplains began to give prayers in both Chambers),
“ha[s] shown that prayer in this limited context could
‘coexis[t] with the principles of disestablishment and
religious freedom.’ ” Ante, at 10 (quoting Marsh,
463 U. S., at 786). Relying on that “unbroken”
national tradition, Marsh upheld (I think correctly) the Nebraska
Legislature’s practice of opening each day with a
chaplain’s prayer as “a tolerable acknowledgment of
beliefs widely held among the people of this country.” Id.,
at 792. And so I agree with the majority that the issue here is
“whether the prayer practice in the Town of Greece fits
within the tradition long followed in Congress and the state
legislatures.” Ante, at 9.

															     Where I depart from the
majority is in my reply to that question. The town hall here is a
kind of hybrid. Greece’s Board indeed has legislative
functions, as Congress and state assemblies do—and that means
some opening prayers are allowed there. But much as in my
hypotheticals, the Board’s meetings are also occasions for
ordinary citizens to engage with and petition their government,
often on highly individualized matters. That feature calls for
Board members to exercise special care to ensure that the prayers
offered are inclusive—that they respect each and every member
of the community as an equal citizen.[ 2 ] But the Board, and the clergy members it selected, made
no such effort. Instead, the prayers given in Greece, addressed
directly to the Town’s citizenry, were more sectarian, and
less inclusive, than anything this Court sustained in Marsh. For
those reasons, the prayer in Greece departs from the legislative
tradition that the majority takes as its benchmark.

															A

															     Start by comparing
two pictures, drawn precisely from reality. The first is of
Nebraska’s (unicameral) Legislature, as this Court and the
state senators themselves described it. The second is of town
council meetings in Greece, as revealed in this case’s
record.

															     It is morning in
Nebraska, and senators are beginning to gather in the State’s
legislative chamber: It is the beginning of the official workday,
although senators may not yet need to be on the floor. See Chambers
v. Marsh, 504 F. Supp. 585, 590, and n. 12 (D. Neb.
1980); Lee, 505 U. S., at 597. The chaplain rises to give the
daily invocation. That prayer, as the senators emphasized when
their case came to this Court, is “directed only at the
legislative membership, not at the public at large.” Brief
for Petitioners in Marsh 30. Any members of the public who happen
to be in attendance—not very many at this early
hour—watch only from the upstairs visitors’ gallery.
See App. 72 in Marsh (senator’s testimony that “as a
practical matter the public usually is not there” during the
prayer).

															     The longtime chaplain
says something like the following (the excerpt is from his own
amicus brief supporting Greece in this case): “O God, who has
given all persons talents and varying capacities, Thou dost only
require of us that we utilize Thy gifts to a maximum. In this
Legislature to which Thou has entrusted special abilities and
opportunities, may each recognize his stewardship for the people of
the State.” Brief for Robert E. Palmer 9. The chaplain is a
Presbyterian minister, and “some of his earlier
prayers” explicitly invoked Christian beliefs, but he
“removed all references to Christ” after a single
legislator complained. Marsh, 463 U. S., at 793, n. 14;
Brief for Petitioners in Marsh 12. The chaplain also previously
invited other clergy members to give the invocation, including
local rabbis. See ibid.

															     Now change the channel:
It is evening in Greece, New York, and the Supervisor of the Town
Board calls its monthly public meeting to order. Those meetings (so
says the Board itself) are “the most important part of Town
government.” See Town of Greece, Town Board, online at
http://greeceny.gov/planning/townboard (as visited May 2, 2014 and
available in Clerk of Court’s case file). They serve assorted
functions, almost all actively involving members of the public. The
Board may swear in new Town employees and hand out awards for civic
accomplishments; it always provides an opportunity (called a Public
Forum) for citizens to address local issues and ask for improved
services or new policies (for example, better accommodations for
the disabled or actions to ameliorate traffic congestion, see Pl.
Exhs. 718, 755, in No. 6:08–cv–6088 (WDNY)); and it
usually hears debate on individ-ual applications from residents and
local businesses to obtain special land-use permits, zoning
variances, or other licenses.

															     The Town Supervisor,
Town Clerk, Chief of Police, and four Board members sit at the
front of the meeting room on a raised dais. But the setting is
intimate: There are likely to be only 10 or so citizens in
attendance. A few may be children or teenagers, present to receive
an award or fulfill a high school civics requirement.

															     As the first order of
business, the Town Supervisor introduces a local Christian clergy
member—denominated the chaplain of the month—to lead
the assembled persons in prayer. The pastor steps up to a lectern
(emblazoned with the Town’s seal) at the front of the dais,
and with his back to the Town officials, he faces the citizens
present. He asks them all to stand and to “pray as we begin
this evening’s town meeting.” App. 134a. (He does not
suggest that anyone should feel free not to participate.) And he
says:

															“The beauties of spring
. . . are an expressive symbol of the new life of the
risen Christ. The Holy Spirit was sent to the apostles at Pentecost
so that they would be courageous witnesses of the Good News to
different regions of the Mediterranean world and beyond. The Holy
Spirit continues to be the inspiration and the source of strength
and virtue, which we all need in the world of today. And so
. . . [w]e pray this evening for the guidance of the Holy
Spirit as the Greece Town Board meets.” Ibid.

															After the pastor concludes, Town officials
behind him make the sign of the cross, as do some members of the
audience, and everyone says “Amen.” See 681 F. 3d
20, 24 (CA2 2012). The Supervisor then announces the start of the
Public Forum, and a citizen stands up to complain about the
Town’s contract with a cable company. See App. in No.
10–3635 (CA2), p. A574.

															B

															     Let’s count the
ways in which these pictures diverge. First, the governmental
proceedings at which the prayers occur differ significantly in
nature and purpose. The Nebraska Legislature’s floor
sessions—like those of the U. S. Congress and other
state assemblies—are of, by, and for elected lawmakers.
Members of the public take no part in those proceedings; any few
who attend are spectators only, watching from a high-up
visitors’ gallery. (In that respect, note that neither the
Nebraska Legislature nor the Congress calls for prayer when
citizens themselves participate in a hearing—say, by giving
testimony relevant to a bill or nomination.) Greece’s town
meetings, by contrast, revolve around ordinary members of the
community. Each and every aspect of those sessions provides
opportunities for Town residents to interact with public officials.
And the most important parts enable those citizens to petition
their government. In the Public Forum, they urge (or oppose)
changes in the Board’s policies and priorities; and then, in
what are essentially adjudicatory hearings, they request the Board
to grant (or deny) applications for various permits, licenses, and
zoning variances. So the meetings, both by design and in operation,
allow citizens to actively participate in the Town’s
governance—sharing concerns, airing grievances, andboth
shaping the community’s policies and seeking their
benefits.

															     Second (and following
from what I just said), the prayers in these two settings have
different audiences. In the Nebraska Legislature, the chaplain
spoke to, and only to, the elected representatives.
Nebraska’s senators were adamant on that point in briefing
Marsh, and the facts fully supported them: As the senators stated,
“[t]he activ-ity is a matter of internal daily procedure
directed only at the legislative membership, not at [members of]
the public.” Brief for Petitioners in Marsh 30; see
Reply Brief for Petitioners in Marsh 8 (“The [prayer]
practice involves no function or power of government
vis-à-vis the Nebraska citizenry, but merely concerns an
internal decision of the Nebraska Legislature as to the daily
procedure by which it conducts its own affairs”). The same is
true in the U. S. Congress and, I suspect, in every other
state legislature. See Brief for Members of Congress as Amici
Curiae 6 (“Consistent with the fact that attending citizens
are mere passive observers, prayers in the House are delivered for
the Representatives themselves, not those citizens”). As
several Justices later noted (and the majority today agrees, see
ante, at 19–20),[ 3 ] Marsh
involved “government officials invok[ing] spiritual
inspiration entirely for their own benefit without directing any
religious message at the citizens they lead.” Lee, 505
U. S., at 630, n. 8 (Souter, J., concurring).

															     The very opposite is
true in Greece: Contrary to the majority’s characterization,
see ante, at 19–20, the prayers there are directed squarely
at the citizens. Remember that the chaplain of the month stands
with his back to the Town Board; his real audience is the group he
is facing—the 10 or so members of the public, perhaps
including children. See supra, at 10. And he typically addresses
those people, as even the majority observes, as though he is
“directing [his] congregation.” Ante, at 21. He almost
always begins with some version of “Let us all pray
together.” See, e.g., App. 75a, 93a, 106a, 109a. Often, he
calls on everyone to stand and bow their heads, and he may ask them
to recite a common prayer with him. See, e.g., id., at 28a, 42a,
43a, 56a, 77a. He refers, constantly, to a collective
“we”—to “our” savior, for example, to
the presence of the Holy Spirit in “our” lives, or to
“our brother the Lord Jesus Christ.” See, e.g., id., at
32a, 45a, 47a, 69a, 71a. In essence, the chaplain leads, as the
first part of a town meeting, a highly intimate (albeit relatively
brief) prayer service, with the public serving as his
congregation.

															     And third, the prayers
themselves differ in their content and character. Marsh
characterized the prayers in the Nebraska Legislature as “in
the Judeo-Christian tradition,” and stated, as a relevant
(even if not dispositive) part of its analysis, that the chaplain
had removed all explicitly Christian references at a
senator’s request. 463 U. S., at 793, n. 14. And as
the majority acknowledges, see ante, at 12, Marsh hinged on the
view that “that the prayer opportunity ha[d] [not] been
exploited to proselytize or advance any one . . . faith
or belief”; had it been otherwise, the Court would have
reached a different decision. 463 U. S., at 794–795.

															     But no one can fairly
read the prayers from Greece’s Town meetings as anything
other than explicitly Christian—constantly and exclusively
so. From the time Greece established its prayer practice in 1999
until litigation loomed nine years later, all of its monthly
chaplains were Christian clergy. And after a brief spell
surrounding the filing of this suit (when a Jewish layman, a Wiccan
priestess, and a Baha’i minister appeared at meetings), the
Town resumed its practice of inviting only clergy from neighboring
Protestant and Catholic churches. See App. 129a–143a. About
two-thirds of the prayers given over this decade or so invoked
“Jesus,” “Christ,” “Your Son,”
or “the Holy Spirit”; in the 18 months before the
record closed, 85% included those references. See generally id., at
27a–143a. Many prayers contained elaborations of Christian
doctrine or recitations of scripture. See, e.g., id., at 129a
(“And in the life and death, resurrection and ascension of
the Savior Jesus Christ, the full extent of your kindness shown to
the unworthy is forever demonstrated”); id., at 94a
(“For unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given. And
the government shall be upon his
shoulder . . .”). And the prayers usually
close with phrases like “in the name of Jesus Christ”
or “in the name of Your son.” See, e.g., id., at 55a,
65a, 73a, 85a.

															     Still more, the prayers
betray no understanding that the American community is today, as it
long has been, a rich mosaic of religious faiths. See Braunfeld v.
Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 606 (1961) (plurality opinion)
(recognizing even half a century ago that “we are a
cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable
religious preference”). The monthly chaplains appear almost
always to assume that everyone in the room is Christian (and of a
kind who has no objection to government-sponsored worship[ 4 ]). The Town itself has never urged
its chaplains to reach out to members of other faiths, or even to
recall that they might be present. And accordingly, few chaplains
have made any effort to be inclusive; none has thought even to
assure attending members of the public that they need not
participate in the prayer session. Indeed, as the majority
forthrightly recognizes, see ante, at 17, when the plaintiffs here
began to voice concern over prayers that excluded some Town
residents, one pastor pointedly thanked the Board “[o]n
behalf of all God-fearing people” for holding fast, and
another declared the objectors “in the minority and
. . . ignorant of the history of our country.” App.
137a, 108a.

															C

															     Those three
differences, taken together, remove this case from the protective
ambit of Marsh and the history on which it relied. To recap: Marsh
upheld prayer addressed to legislators alone, in a proceeding in
which citizens had no role—and even then, only when it did
not “proselytize or advance” any single religion. 463
U. S., at 794. It was that legislative prayer practice (not
every prayer in a body exercising any legislative function) that
the Court found constitutional given its “unambiguous and
unbroken history.” Id., at 792. But that approved practice,
as I have shown, is not Greece’s. None of the history Marsh
cited—and none the majority details today—supports
calling on citizens to pray, in a manner consonant with only a
single religion’s beliefs, at a participatory public
proceeding, having both legislative and adjudicative components. Or
to use the majority’s phrase, no “history shows that
th[is] specific practice is permitted.” Ante, at 8. And so,
contra the majority, Greece’s prayers cannot simply ride on
the constitutional coattails of the legislative tradition Marsh
described. The Board’s practice must, in its own particulars,
meet constitutional requirements.

															     And the guideposts for
addressing that inquiry include the principles of religious
neutrality I discussed earlier. See supra, at 4–8. The
government (whether federal, state, or local) may not favor, or
align itself with, any particular creed. And that is nowhere more
true than when officials and citizens come face to face in their
shared institutions of governance. In performing civic functions
and seeking civic benefits, each person of this nation must
experience a government that belongs to one and all, irrespective
of belief. And for its part, each government must ensure that its
participatory processes will not classify those citizens by faith,
or make relevant their religious differences.

															     To decide how Greece
fares on that score, think again about how its prayer practice
works, meeting after meeting. The case, I think, has a fair bit in
common with my earlier hypotheticals. See supra, at 2–4, 7.
Let’s say that a Muslim citizen of Greece goes before the
Board to share her views on policy or request some permit. Maybe
she wants the Board to put up a traffic light at a dangerous
intersection; or maybe she needs a zoning variance to build an
addition on her home. But just before she gets to say her piece, a
minister deputized by the Town asks her to pray “in the name
of God’s only son Jesus Christ.” App. 99a. She must
think—it is hardly paranoia, but only the truth—that
Christian worship has become entwined with local governance. And
now she faces a choice—to pray alongside the majority as one
of that group or somehow to register her deeply felt difference.
She is a strong person, but that is no easy call—especially
given that the room is small and her every action (or inaction)
will be noticed. She does not wish to be rude to her neighbors, nor
does she wish to aggravate the Board members whom she will soon be
trying to persuade. And yet she does not want to acknowledge
Christ’s divinity, any more than many of her neighbors would
want to deny that tenet. So assume she declines to participate with
the others in the first act of the meeting—or even, as the
majority proposes, that she stands up and leaves the room
altogether, see ante, at 21. At the least, she becomes a different
kind of citizen, one who will not join in the religious practice
that the Town Board has chosen as reflecting its own and the
community’s most cherished beliefs. And she thus stands at a
remove, based solely on religion, from her fellow citizens and her
elected representatives.

															     Everything about that
situation, I think, infringes the First Amendment. (And of course,
as I noted earlier, it would do so no less if the Town’s
clergy always used the liturgy of some other religion. See supra,
at 4–5.) That the Town Board selects, month after month and
year after year, prayergivers who will reliably speak in the voice
of Christianity, and so places itself behind a single creed. That
in offering those sectarian prayers, the Board’s chosen
clergy members repeatedly call on individuals, prior to
participating in local governance, to join in a form of worship
that may be at odds with their own beliefs. That the clergy thus
put some residents to the unenviable choice of either pretending to
pray like the majority or declining to join its communal activity,
at the very moment of petitioning their elected leaders. That the
practice thus divides the citizenry, creating one class that shares
the Board’s own evident religious beliefs and another (far
smaller) class that does not. And that the practice also alters a
dissenting citizen’s relationship with her government, making
her religious difference salient when she seeks only to engage her
elected representatives as would any other citizen.

															     None of this means that
Greece’s town hall must be religion- or prayer-free.
“[W]e are a religious people,” Marsh observed, 463
U. S., at 792, and prayer draws some warrant from tradition in
a town hall, as well as in Congress or a state legislature, see
supra, at 8–9. What the circumstances here demand is the
recognition that we are a pluralistic people too. When citizens of
all faiths cometo speak to each other and their elected
representativesin a legislative session, the government must take
espe-cial care to ensure that the prayers they hear will seekto
include, rather than serve to divide. No more isrequired—but
that much is crucial—to treat every citizen, of whatever
religion, as an equal participant in hergovernment.

															     And contrary to the
majority’s (and Justice Alito’s) view, see ante, at
13–14; ante, at 4–7, that is not difficult to do. If
the Town Board had let its chaplains know that they should speak in
nonsectarian terms, common to diverse religious groups, then no one
would have valid grounds for complaint. See Joyner v. Forsyth
County, 653 F. 3d 341, 347 (CA4 2011) (Wilkinson, J.) (Such
prayers show that “those of different creeds are in the end
kindred spirits, united by a respect paid higher providence and by
a belief in the importance of religious faith”). Priests and
ministers, rabbis and imams give such invocations all the time;
there is no great mystery to the project. (And providing that
guidance would hardly have caused the Board to run afoul of the
idea that “[t]he First Amendment is not a majority
rule,” as the Court (headspinningly) suggests, ante, at 14;
what does that is the Board’s refusal to reach out to members
of minority religious groups.) Or if the Board preferred, it might
have invited clergy of many faiths to serve as chaplains, as the
majority notes that Congress does. See ante, at 10–11. When
one month a clergy member refers to Jesus, and the next to Allah or
Jehovah—as the majority hopefully though counterfactually
suggests happened here, see ante, at 10–11, 15—the
government does not identify itself with one religion or align
itself with that faith’s citizens, and the effect of even
sectarian prayer is transformed. So Greece had multiple ways of
incorporating prayer into its town meetings—reflecting all
the ways that prayer (as most of us know from daily life) can forge
common bonds, rather than divide. See also ante, at 4 (Breyer, J.,
dissenting).

															     But Greece could not do
what it did: infuse a participatory government body with one (and
only one) faith, so that month in and month out, the citizens
appearing before it become partly defined by their creed—as
those who share, and those who do not, the community’s
major-ity religious belief. In this country, when citizens go
before the government, they go not as Christians or Muslims or Jews
(or what have you), but just as Americans (or here, as Grecians).
That is what it means to be an equal citizen, irrespective of
religion. And that is what the Town of Greece precluded by so
identifying itself with a single faith.

															III

															     How, then, does the
majority go so far astray, allowing the Town of Greece to turn its
assemblies for citizens into a forum for Christian prayer? The
answer does not lie in first principles: I have no doubt that every
member of this Court believes as firmly as I that our institutions
of government belong equally to all, regardless of faith. Rather,
the error reflects two kinds of blindness. First, the major-ity
misapprehends the facts of this case, as distinct from those
characterizing traditional legislative prayer. And second, the
majority misjudges the essential meaning of the religious worship
in Greece’s town hall, along with its capacity to exclude and
divide.

															     The facts here matter
to the constitutional issue; in-deed, the majority itself
acknowledges that the requisite inquiry—a
“fact-sensitive” one—turns on “the setting
in which the prayer arises and the audience to whom it is
directed.” Ante, at 19. But then the majority glides right
over those considerations—at least as they relate to the Town
of Greece. When the majority analyzes the “setting” and
“audience” for prayer, it focuses almost exclusively on
Congress and the Nebraska Legislature, see ante, at 6–8,
10–11, 15–16, 19–20; it does not stop to analyze
how far those factors differ in Greece’s meetings. The
majority thus gives short shrift to the gap—more like, the
chasm—between a legislative floor session involving only
elected officials and a town hall revolving around ordinary
citizens. And similarly the majority neglects to consider how the
prayers in Greece are mostly addressed to members of the public,
rather than (as in the forums it discusses) to the lawmakers.
“The District Court in Marsh,” the majority expounds,
“described the prayer exercise as ‘an internal
act’ directed at the Nebraska Legislature’s ‘own
members.’ ” Ante, at 19 (quoting Chambers v.
Marsh, 504 F. Supp., at 588); see ante, at 20 (similarly
noting that Nebraska senators “invoke[d] spiritual
inspiration entirely for their own benefit” and that prayer
in Congress is “religious worship for national
representatives” only). Well, yes, so it is in Lincoln, and
on Capitol Hill. But not in Greece, where as I have described, the
chaplain faces the Town’s residents—with the Board
watching from on high—and calls on them to pray together. See
supra, at 10, 12.

															     And of course—as
the majority sidesteps as well—to pray in the name of Jesus
Christ. In addressing the sectarian content of these prayers, the
majority again changes the subject, preferring to explain what
happens in other government bodies. The majority notes, for
example, that Congress “welcom[es] ministers of many
creeds,” who commonly speak of “values that count as
universal,” ante, at 11, 15; and in that context, the
majority opines, the fact “[t]hat a prayer is given in the
name of Jesus, Allah, or Jehovah . . . does not remove it
from” Marsh’s protection, see ante, at 15. But that
case is not this one, as I have shown, because in Greece only
Christian clergy members speak, and then mostly in the voice of
their own religion; no Allah or Jehovah ever is mentioned. See
supra, at 13–14. So all the majority can point to in the
Town’s practice is that the Board “maintains a policy
of nondiscrimination,” and “represent[s] that it would
welcome a prayer by any minister or layman who wishe[s] to give
one.” Ante, at 17–18. But that representation has never
been publicized; nor has the Board (except for a few months
surrounding this suit’s filing) offered the chaplain’s
role to any non-Christian clergy or layman, in either Greece or its
environs; nor has the Board ever provided its chaplains with
guidance about reaching out to members of other faiths, as most
state legislatures and Congress do. See 732 F. Supp. 2d 195,
197–203 (WDNY 2010); National Conference of State
Legislatures, Inside the Legislative Process: Prayer Practices
5–145, 5–146 (2002); ante, at 5 (Breyer, J.,
dissenting). The majority thus errs in assimilatingthe
Board’s prayer practice to that of Congress or the Ne-braska
Legislature. Unlike those models, the Board is
determinedly—and relentlessly—noninclusive.[ 5 ]

															     And the month in, month
out sectarianism the Board chose for its meetings belies the
majority’s refrain that the prayers in Greece were
“ceremonial” in nature. Ante, at 16, 19, 21, 23.
Ceremonial references to the divine surely abound: The majority is
right that “the Pledge of Allegiance, inaugural prayer, or
the recitation of ‘God save the United States and this
honorable Court’ ” each fits the bill. Ante, at
19. But prayers evoking “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ
on the cross,” “the plan of redemption that is
fulfilled in Jesus Christ,” “the life and death,
resurrection and ascension of the Savior Jesus Christ,” the
workings of the Holy Spirit, the events of Pentecost, and the
belief that God “has raised up the Lord Jesus” and
“will raise us, in our turn, and put us by His side”?
See App. 56a, 88a–89a, 99a, 123a, 129a, 134a. No. These are
statements of profound belief and deep meaning, subscribed to by
many, denied by some. They “speak of the depths of
[one’s] life, of the source of [one’s] being, of
[one’s] ultimate concern, of what [one] take[s] seriously
without any reservation.” P. Tillich, The Shaking of the
Foundations 57 (1948). If they (and the central tenets of other
religions) ever become mere ceremony, this country will be a
fundamentally different—and, I think, poorer—place to
live.

															     But just for that
reason, the not-so-implicit message of the majority’s
opinion—“What’s the big deal,
anyway?”—is mistaken. The content of Greece’s
prayers is a big deal, to Christians and non-Christians alike. A
person’s response to the doctrine, language, and imagery
contained in those invocations reveals a core aspect of
identity—who that person is and how she faces the world. And
the responses of different individuals, in Greece and across this
country, of course vary. Contrary to the majority’s apparent
view, such sectarian prayers are not “part of our expressive
idiom” or “part of our heritage and tradition,”
assuming the word “our” refers to all Americans. Ante,
at 19. They express beliefs that are fundamental to some, foreign
to others—and because that is so they carry the ever-present
potential to both exclude and divide. The majority, I think,
assesses too lightly the significance of these religious
differences, and so fears too little the “religiously based
divisiveness that the Establishment Clause seeks to avoid.”
Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U. S. 677, 704 (2005) (Breyer, J.,
concurring in judgment). I would treat more seriously the
multiplicity of Americans’ religious commitments, along with
the challenge they can pose to theproject—the distinctively
American project—of creating one from the many, and governing
all as united.

															IV

															     In 1790, George
Washington traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, a longtime bastion of
religious liberty and the home of the first community of American
Jews. Among the citizens he met there was Moses Seixas, one of that
congregation’s lay officials. The ensuing exchange between
the two conveys, as well as anything I know, the promise this
country makes to members of every religion.

															     Seixas wrote first,
welcoming Washington to Newport. He spoke of “a deep sense of
gratitude” for the new American Government—“a
Government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no
assistance—but generously affording to All liberty of
conscience, and immunities of Citizenship: deeming every one, of
whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great
governmental Machine.” Address from Newport Hebrew
Congregation (Aug. 17, 1790), in 6 PGW 286, n. 1 (M.
Mastromarino ed. 1996). The first phrase there is the more poetic:
a government that to “bigotry gives no sanction, to
persecution no assistance.” But the second is actually the
more startling and transformative: a government that, beyond not
aiding persecution, grants “immunities of citizenship”
to the Christian and the Jew alike, and makes them “equal
parts” of the whole country.

															     Washington responded
the very next day. Like any successful politician, he appreciated a
great line when he saw one—and knew to borrow it too. And so
he repeated, word for word, Seixas’s phrase about neither
sanctioning bigotry nor assisting persecution. But he no less
embraced the point Seixas had made about equality of citizenship.
“It is now no more,” Washington said, “that
toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one
class of people” to another, lesser one. For “[a]ll
possess alike . . . immunities of citizenship.” Letter to
Newport Hebrew Congregation (Aug. 18, 1790), in 6 PGW 285. That is
America’s promise in the First Amendment: full and equal
membership in the polity for members of every religious group,
assuming only that they, like anyone “who live[s] under [the
Government’s] protection[,] should demean themselves as good
citizens.” Ibid.

															     For me, that remarkable
guarantee means at least this much: When the citizens of this
country approach their government, they do so only as Americans,
not as mem-bers of one faith or another. And that means that evenin
a partly legislative body, they should not
confrontgovernment-sponsored worship that divides them along
religious lines. I believe, for all the reasons I have given, that
the Town of Greece betrayed that promise. I therefore respectfully
dissent from the Court’s decision. Notes 1 That principle meant as
much to the founders as it does today. The demand for neutrality
among religions is not a product of 21st century “political
correctness,” but of the 18th century view—rendered no
less wise by time—that, in George Washington’s words,
“[r]eligious controversies are always productive of more
acrimony and irreconciliable hatreds than those which spring from
any other cause.” Letter to Edward Newenham (June 22, 1792),
in 10 Papers of George Washington: Presidential Series493 (R.
Haggard & M. Mastromarino eds. 2002) (hereinafter PGW). In an
age when almost no one in this country was not a Christian of one
kind or another, Washington consistently declined to use language
or imagery associated only with that religion. See Brief for Paul
Finkelman et al. as 15–19 (noting, for example, that in
revising his first inaugural address, Washington deleted the phrase
“the blessed Religion revealed in the word of God”
because it was understood to denote only Christianity). Thomas
Jefferson, who followed the same practice throughout his life,
explained that he omitted any reference to Jesus Christ in
Virginia’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (a
precursor to the Establishment Clause) in order “to
comprehend, within the mantle of [the law’s] protection, the
Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and
infidel of every denomination.” 1Writings of Thomas Jefferson
62 (P. Ford ed. 1892). And James Madison, who again used only
nonsectarian language in his writings and addresses, warned that
religious proclamations might, “if not strictly
guarded,” express only “the creed of the majority and a
single sect.” Madison’s “Detached
Memoranda,” 3 Wm. & Mary Quarterly 534, 561
(1946). 2 Because questions this
point, it bears repeating. I do not remotely contend that
“prayer is not allowed” at participatory meetings of
“local government legislative bodies”; nor is that the
“logical thrust” of any argument I make. , at
7–8. Rather, what I say throughout this opinion is that in
this citizen-centered venue, government officials must take steps
to ensure—as none of Greece’s Board members ever
did—that opening prayers are inclusive of different faiths,
rather than always identified with a single religion. 3 For ease of reference and
to avoid confusion, I refer to ’s opinion as “the
majority.” But the language I cite that appears in Part
II–B of that opinion is, in fact, only attributable to a
plurality of the Court. 4 Leaders of several
Baptist and other Christian congregations have explained to the
Court that “many Christians believe . . . that their freedom
of conscience is violated when they are pressured to participate in
government prayer, because such acts of worship should only be
performed voluntarily.” Brief for Baptist Joint Committee for
Religious Liberty et al. as 18. 5 similarly falters in
attempting to excuse the Town Board’s constant sectarianism.
His concurring opiniontakes great pains to show that the problem
arose from a sort of bureaucratic glitch: The Town’s clerks,
he writes, merely “did a bad job in compiling the list”
of chaplains. at 6; see , at 1–3. Now I suppose one question
that account raises is why in over a decade, no member of the Board
noticed that the clerk’s list was producing prayers of only
one kind. But put that aside. Honest oversight or not, the problem
remains: Every month for more than a decade, the Board aligned
itself, through its prayer practices, with a single religion. That
the concurring opinion thinks my objection to that is “really
quite niggling,” , at 4, says all there is to say about the
difference between our respective views.