Greece's prayer policy raises new questions
Secular groups are accusing the town of Greece of slamming the door on atheists with a new set of guidelines for invocations at public meetings.
The Town Board adopted its first formal policy on the matter last week, roughly 3½ months after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the board's practice of opening meetings with a prayer as long as local officials do not discriminate against minority faiths.
Until now, the town had no written rules on selecting who can give an invocation.
The policy says that now, speakers will represent "assemblies with an established presence in the town of Greece that regularly meet for the primary purpose of sharing a religious perspective." Assemblies outside the town can participate too if at least one Greece resident attends them regularly and specifically asks in writing for them to be included.
Those rules fly in the face of what the town told the U.S. Supreme Court, which was that people of any persuasion, including lay people and atheists, could give invocations, said Gregory M. Lipper, senior litigation counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Nowhere do the rules mention non-religious people, nor individuals who do not belong to an organized religious group.
"It's an enormous bait and switch," said Lipper, whose group represented plaintiffs Susan Galloway, who is Jewish, and Linda Stephens, an atheist, in the suit that reached the nation's top court — town of Greece v. Galloway.
Supervisor Bill Reilich's office referred questions to Town Attorney Brian Marianetti. He said Greece officials decided to adopt guidelines after receiving a flood of requests to speak at town meetings after the Supreme Court decision.
The intent is not to limit invocations based on their content, but geographically and to "legitimate, established assemblies," he said.
"I don't feel that the policy in any way singles out or discriminates against any form of belief," said Marianetti, who also represents northwestern Greece and part of Charlotte as a Republican in the Monroe County Legislature.
The rules mirror a model policy from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal organization that represented the town in the Supreme Court case. Brett Harvey, the group's senior counsel, said allowing anyone to speak "made sense when the town had a manageable number of people making a request." Now Greece needed a neutral way to select speakers, he said.
The alliance's model policy has been adopted by municipalities across the country and has passed muster with federal courts, he said.
"The question is not, 'Is this the only way to do it?' " Harvey said. "The question is, 'Is this a discriminatory way to do this?' The answer is no."
But Lipper questioned why the policy isn't based on geography alone if it is simply about managing a large number of requests.
The rules appear to disqualify some of the few non-Christians who delivered invocations at town meetings before the Supreme Court ruling, Lipper said. Many people in Greece who are not Christian worship outside the town, and the policy also creates a new hurdle to including their houses of worship in invocations, he said.
Dan Courtney of Hamlin, an atheist who delivered an invocation before the Town Board in July, said the new rules appear to disqualify residents who do not belong to an organized religious group. Courtney himself would not likely be allowed to give an invocation now, as he does not live in the town or belong to any assembly there, he said.
"I was surprised that they would be quite so blatant about the discrimination they wish to impose," Courtney said Monday.
David Niose, legal director for the American Humanist Association, said in a statement that the policy shows the town's argument to the Supreme Court was "completely disingenuous" and that its claims of inclusiveness "were never sincere."
The rules say an invocation can include "a prayer, a reflective moment of silence or a short solemnizing message," and that no one is required to participate. The policy will be "all-inclusive of every diverse religious assembly serving the citizens of the town of Greece," it says.
If any question arises about the authenticity of a religious assembly, the town clerk will check whether an organization would qualify for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit status, the guidelines said. The clerk also would send an annual letter addressed to the religious leader of each assembly, inviting them to give invocations on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Marianetti said that he did not want to discuss hypothetical situations and that the town would decide speakers on a case-by-case basis. But it is conceivable an atheist with an established group that qualified as a nonprofit could be added to the list, he said.
"What we're really looking to do is just get back to the business of the town and serving the residents," Marianetti said.
DRILEY@DemocratandChronicle.com