Supreme Court Oral Argument: Town of Greece v. Galloway

The town of Greece, New York, a suburb of Rochester, is governed by a five-member Town Board that conducts official business at monthly meetings.

Previously the Board would open meetings with a moment of silence. In 1999, the Town Supervisor began a practice of inviting a member of the local clergy to offer aprayer. At the time of the lawsuit, the town employee invited local clergy to deliver the prayer at first relying on a list of churches in the town community guide. Until 2008, the list only included Christian congregations. Between 1999-2007 every person who delivered a prayer was Christian. Most recently there were other non-Christian prayer givers including Baha’i, Jewish, Wiccan and Islam.

Plaintiff Linda Stephens is an atheist who objects to all legislative prayer. Susan Galloway would prefer that there be no legislative prayers but believes that any government prayers should at least be nonsectarian & inclusive. close