For citizens against the prayers, the decision sets dangerous church-state precedent. For the town of Greece, court’s ruling is a victory for religious freedom.
– Brett Harvey, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the town of Greece, in Town of Greece v. Galloway, at the U.S. Supreme Court, writing as a guest in the National Law Journal.
That’s right. States are people entitled to equal protection of federal law under the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. Corporations are people entitled to freely practice their religion under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause, and to use the fund of their unwitting shareholders to exercise their CEO’s First Amendment right to free speech.
And town governments are people entitled to exercise their religious majority’s right to freely practice their religion under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause.
The Alliance has successfully defended freedom. The decision “not only protects the ability of the government to accommodate the faith of the people, but it adds further protection for people to publicly pray and express their own faith,” Mr. Harvey writes.
Which is good, because of all those people right here in America who were being arrested for praying publicly and expressing their own faith. No longer will Americans have to worry about being able to make bail and retaining criminal counsel after praying outside.
And now they can even go Christmas caroling around their neighborhood each December while carrying two cell phones, and make it home unmolested by arrest.