# Anthony Kennedy is an idiot (re: prayer decision)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [May 5, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736 "2014-05-05T18:30:17Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/61 "2014-05-06T13:09:07Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> 1. I’ve got nothing against ‘ceremonial deism’ per se. I’m not keen on it, but I can certainly live with it.
I don’t think there’s any such thing as “ceremonial deism”. It’s religion. If it weren’t religion the folks that want religion, _their_ religion, infused into every aspect of American society wouldn’t be in such fits when the so-called ceremonial deism is in danger of being removed from the public sphere.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/62 "2014-05-06T13:19:53Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> If you feel like offering a rebuttal to anything I’ve said, Counselor, you would be most welcome to do so.
>
> So far, your contributions to this thread have been a mixture of whining and nonsense.
>
> If you want to act like a grownup, I will be happy to engage you in conversation. If you don’t want to do so, I will talk with the other grownups.
Your last post to me celebrated the clarity of your OP, and suggested that it was only my lack of reading ability that caused any confusion on my part. Here is that post:
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> Seriously, I have no clue what point you’re trying to make. You totally misread my OP, and when I tried to spell it out for you, you said something in response that made zero sense.
A subsequent post acknowledged that your OP contradicted the link you gave therein to support it, and admitted that your OP would have been clearer if you had added additional information. Here is that post:
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> My apologies. Per the link, the prayers included references to things like “the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.” I should have mentioned that in my OP.
I pointed out that these two claims seemed inconsistent with each other – that is, you cannot simultaneously claim that your OP was so perfectly clear that my in ability to read was the only possible way I could misunderstand your point, and then acknowledge that in fact there was clarity missing.
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### Author:  [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/63 "2014-05-06T13:21:26Z")
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> I don’t know Dayenu… I was the guest goy at a Passover dinner once, and enjoyed it; what are Yom Kippur services like? I mean, I’m willing to try these things out once, at least!
>
> But I suspect you’ve probably already heard no few sermons/lectures/essays/apologists for Christianity. A lot more prevalent in our society than Judaic material. (I emailed “Ask the Rabbi” once…)
>
> Oh, I just YouTubed Dayenu. Only three verses. Hey, I’ve heard worse!
Yom Kippur services can go on all day. Dayenu, alas, can also go on all day if my eleven year old is in singing mode.
---
### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/64 "2014-05-06T13:31:28Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#):
>
> Maybe I should sum up my argument, for clarity’s sake:
>
> 1. I’ve got nothing against ‘ceremonial deism’ per se. I’m not keen on it, but I can certainly live with it.
>
> 2. But having that concept in the law demands constant vigilance on the part of the courts to maintain the line between state-sponsored ‘ceremonial deism’ (which is permissible) and state-sponsored sectarian religious expression (which is not).
>
> 3. Phrases like **“the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross”** \* are clearly sectarian religious expressions\*, and are well beyond what can be construed as ‘ceremonial deism.’
>
> 4. By allowing such state-sponsored expressions under the rubric of ‘ceremonial deism,’ the Court dropped the ball.
>
> 5. Kennedy’s statement that “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” is in this context an amazing refusal to maintain that line.
>
> You can’t draw a line between supposedly not-really-religious ceremonial deism and sectarian religious expression, and then say you can’t enforce that line because that would have you operating “as supervisors and censors of religious speech.” That would be true enough _if you agreed that ‘ceremonial deism’ was religious speech_ - but the whole reason that we can allow it in state fora is that supposedly it’s **not**.
>
> Kennedy can’t have it both ways. Either ceremonial deism is religious speech, in which case it has no place in our government, or it’s not, in which case it’s his duty to maintain the line between government-sponsored non-religious speech and government-sponsored religious speech.
>
> But it can’t be religious speech when you’re saying the courts can’t distinguish between different sorts of religious speech in government fora, and at the same time be non-religious speech in order to allow it in the door to begin with.
>
> A whole lot is too much; too much is a whole lot. Same thing.
>
> 1. Giving everyone the right to lead a sectarian prayer at a public forum just means the majority decides to get what the established religion is. Establishment of religion by majority rule is right out. The fact that it’s done through a ‘neutral’ mechanism doesn’t change that: of course such neutral mechanisms will favor the majority. [Other majoritarian mechanisms have been rejected by SCOTUS concerning prayer at public school activities such as high school football games.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Independent_School_Dist._v._Doe)
OK! This is a much clearer statement of your argument. I guess my reading skills have improved since yesterday.
I believe your argument fails at paragraph three:
1. Phrases like **“the saving sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross”** \* are clearly sectarian religious expressions\*, and are well beyond what can be construed as ‘ceremonial deism.’
That’s not true. The reason it’s not true is because the test for ceremonial deism does not rise or fall on the inclusion of single instances of prayer. Indeed, even referring to “God,” and asking His blessing excludes Buddhists by contextually invoking the God of Abraham, common to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. Instead, what’s true is what has been true since Marsh v. Chambers was decided: the opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country, and from colonial times through the founding of the Republic and ever since, the practice of legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious freedom. (Quoting Marsh v. Chambers).
As the Marsh Court pointed out, the same legislative body, in the same week, approved the text of the First Amendment, and voted to appoint and to pay a chaplain for the House and the Senate. They could not, therefore, have intended the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to forbid what they had just declared permissible.
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### Author:  [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/65 "2014-05-06T13:43:30Z")
He disagrees with _Marsh_. Perhaps someone should have windily pointed that out to the rest of us earlier in the thread.
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### Author:  [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/66 "2014-05-06T13:58:13Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#):
>
> How about we declare a truce? I won’t make you all listen to ten choruses of Dayenu or sit through Yom Kippur services and you don’t force to me to listen to preachings about Jesus? 'kay?
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> I don’t know Dayenu… I was the guest goy at a Passover dinner once, and enjoyed it; what are Yom Kippur services like? I mean, I’m willing to try these things out once, at least!
>
> But I suspect you’ve probably already heard no few sermons/lectures/essays/apologists for Christianity. A lot more prevalent in our society than Judaic material. (I emailed “Ask the Rabbi” once…)
>
> Oh, I just YouTubed Dayenu. Only three verses. Hey, I’ve heard worse!
If you had only forced yourself to listen to one verse, it would have been enough.
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### Author:  [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/67 "2014-05-06T14:10:07Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#):
>
> He disagrees with _Marsh_. Perhaps someone should have windily pointed that out to the rest of us earlier in the thread.
Yes. I can’t believe I failed to make that observation earlier.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/68 "2014-05-06T14:12:32Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#):
>
> Resolved: Ceremonial Deism is neither ceremonial nor deist.
It’s a legal fig leaf that allows us (well, those of us who care which doesn’t really include me) to pretend that we have separation of church and state. We kinda do, but we really don’t. And since it does kinda hang out there sometimes, we do need a fig leaf.
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### Author:  [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/69 "2014-05-06T14:38:03Z")
> [@wevets](#):
>
> I’d guess ripping out a mailbox and putting it on top of someone’s car and tossing a part from a fire hydrant into a swimming pool qualifies as a ‘fit’ for most purposes.
That’s not Christians reacting to another faith praying, that is an asshole terrorizing / vandalizing someone who filed a lawsuit.
I was objecting to the broad brush painting of Christians.
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/70 "2014-05-06T14:39:22Z")
> [@Bricker](#):
>
> Your last post to me celebrated the clarity of your OP, and suggested that it was only my lack of reading ability that caused any confusion on my part. Here is that post:
>
> A subsequent post acknowledged that your OP contradicted the link you gave therein to support it, and admitted that your OP would have been clearer if you had added additional information. Here is that post:
>
> I pointed out that these two claims seemed inconsistent with each other – that is, you cannot simultaneously claim that your OP was so perfectly clear that my in ability to read was the only possible way I could misunderstand your point, and then acknowledge that in fact there was clarity missing.
Of course I can’t simultaneously claim those things, which was why I didn’t. I never said there was only one possible way my post could be misunderstood.
**John Mace** and I had a misunderstanding based on what I left out. You and I had a misunderstanding based on your failure to read what was there.
And you were a big baby about it, too.
Now enough of this meta shit.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/71 "2014-05-06T15:06:11Z")
**RTF** : Do you think _any_ of the SCOTUS justices see eye-to-eye with you on this? That is, would any of them be willing to reject the entire notion of ceremonial deism? If not, why the vitriol for Kennedy? Once you accept C.D., reasonably people can then disagree on where to draw the line.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/72 "2014-05-06T15:08:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> **RTF** : Do you think _any_ of the SCOTUS justices see eye-to-eye with you on this? That is, would any of them be willing to reject the entire notion of ceremonial deism? If not, why the vitriol for Kennedy? Once you accept C.D., reasonably people can then disagree on where to draw the line.
Is there a line that can be drawn that the SCOTUS can actually see when it comes to CD?
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/73 "2014-05-06T15:17:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> I wouldn’t look at quotas or outcomes, but at process. Is the process open to people of all faiths, and to people of no faith? Are there people who have had legitimate offerings, but were turned away because the process was rigged against them?
I would ask, “What do you mean by an open process”? And does it have to be “turned away”?
The process, for example, might be nominally open, but might also generally involve a member of the council asking a particular person to perform the service. What if they have never “turned away” a Muslim or an atheist (or whatever), but the reason for this is that they have never asked one to perform the ritual?
The very case under discussion here was one in which no non-Christian had EVER been involved right up until the time the lawsuit was filed. And yet i don’t think there’s any evidence that non-Christians were actually turned away, or that the process was officially “rigged” in any formal or regulatory manner; it’s just the case that the default position was to have a Christian prayer. How pervasive must this default position be for a reasonable person to infer that Christianity enjoys a privileged and elevated position in the government?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/74 "2014-05-06T15:23:37Z")
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> I would ask, “What do you mean by an open process”? And does it have to be “turned away”?
>
> The process, for example, might be nominally open, but might also generally involve a member of the council asking a particular person to perform the service. What if they have never “turned away” a Muslim or an atheist (or whatever), but the reason for this is that they have never asked one to perform the ritual?
>
> The very case under discussion here was one in which no non-Christian had EVER been involved right up until the time the lawsuit was filed.
Are you sure? From the OP’s article (emphasis added):
> [@](#):
>
> Town officials in Greece, N.Y., near Rochester, said members of all faiths, and atheists, were welcome to give the opening prayer. In practice, however, almost all of the chaplains were Christian.
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> And yet i don’t think there’s any evidence that non-Christians were actually turned away, or that the process was officially “rigged” in any formal or regulatory manner; it’s just the case that the default position was to have a Christian prayer. How pervasive must this default position be for a reasonable person to infer that Christianity enjoys a privileged and elevated position in the government?
If the process is such that only Christians are invited, then that process fails. Again, you’d have to look at each case individually (that is, if some citizens object). The process might have to literally be a random drawing in order to make it kosher (pun intended).
---
### Author:  [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/75 "2014-05-06T16:15:14Z")
> [@Algher](#):
>
> That’s not Christians reacting to another faith praying, that is an asshole terrorizing / vandalizing someone who filed a lawsuit.
>
> I was objecting to the broad brush painting of Christians.
This is what **Trinopus** said that you requested a cite for:
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> What’s also highly instructive is the reaction of Christians on those very few instances when the invocation was non-Christian. They pitched a huge fit.
This is what the site I cited says:
> [@http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/04/supreme-court-prayer-greece-new-york/3323905/](#):
>
> As the two women began to attend more town board meetings, their focus turned to the opening prayers. Once the lawsuit was filed, the town imported a Jewish layman, a man of the Baha’i faith and a Wiccan priestess who prayed to Athena and Apollo.
>
> That wasn’t all that happened. Stephens, a widow, awoke one morning to find her mailbox on top of her car. Part of a fire hydrant turned up in her swimming pool. And an anonymous letter urged her to “be careful … lawsuits can be detrimental.”
Note that once the lawsuit is filed, the town board responds with bringing in Jewish, Baha’i, Wiccan, and Greek pantheist prayers and some person or persons then vandalizes the person who brought the lawsuit’s property.
Whether you think **Trinopus** was painting with a broad brush or not (I took his meaning to be “Christians” [in the town of Greece, New York] - perhaps you took it differently) it’s reasonable to surmise that although we don’t know the mindset of the unknown vandal(s) referred to in the second paragraph of the cite, they likely preferred Christian-only prayers to the multi-faith prayers provided after the lawsuit was filed, and they therefore likely self-identify as Christian.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/76 "2014-05-06T16:53:55Z")
That’s \*somebody \*who doesn’t think prayer is just “ceremonial”, huh?
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### Author:  [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/77 "2014-05-06T17:19:39Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> **RTF** : Do you think _any_ of the SCOTUS justices see eye-to-eye with you on this?
Oh, absolutely. I’m sure that the minority all harbors doubts about ceremonial deism, and regards it as a necessary evil at best. But one that now is firmly established precedent, so they’re not going to overturn it unless it can be demonstrated to be unworkable.
Probably the main difference between the minority and me is that I regard this decision itself as evidence of its unworkability. I doubt that they’ve come to that conclusion yet.
> [@](#):
>
> That is, would any of them be willing to reject the entire notion of ceremonial deism?
That’s a side issue to me. I believe this decision has revealed the problem inherent in C.D. like nothing up to this point has, because drawing a distinction between C.D. and clearly sectarian religious expression requires a Supreme Court majority willing to continue to define and hold that line. ETA: But I’m not fundamentally against C.D.; I think we’d be better off without it, sure, but it’s not an argument that I’m interested in investing much energy in.
> [@](#):
>
> If not, why the vitriol for Kennedy? Once you accept C.D., reasonably people can then disagree on where to draw the line.
Because he’s not drawing the line in a different place, AFAICT; his own words say that drawing the line _isn’t his business._
And if the Supreme Court takes itself out of the business of drawing a line between C.D. and sectarian religious expression, then anything goes. We can disagree over where the line should be drawn, but we agree that there is a line. Kennedy apparently disagrees, and that’s my problem with him.
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/78 "2014-05-06T17:24:02Z")
“Let us now give thanks that we sacrifice the ‘factually innocent’ by our jurisprudence so that our Leviathan maintains its dignity, power and capriciousness forever and ever. Cash accepted.”
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### Author:  [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/79 "2014-05-06T18:03:58Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Are you sure? From the OP’s article (emphasis added):
Yes, almost all were Christian, but as i said, the non-Christians only made an appearance after the plaintiffs began making noise. From Breyer’s dissent:
> [@](#):
>
> 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.
If a school district only begins desegregation procedures after complaints are made and lawsuits are filed, it’s pretty hard to argue that the response justifies a claim that the system has always been fair. I think the same principle applies here.
---
### Author:  [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)
#### Post date: [May 6, 2014, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anthony-kennedy-is-an-idiot-re-prayer-decision/687736/80 "2014-05-06T18:31:23Z")
I prefer a total separation of church and state but if you’re going to have religion then all religious faiths (from judaism to scientology and pastafarianism) should be equally respected.
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> I’d be happy to get rid of ceremonial deism and prayers before legislative meetings and all that, but the thing I can’t get around is that Congress has had Chaplains and opened their sessions with a prayer since the First Congress. The Congress that passed the first amendment started with a prayer. So, I’m not really sure that you can reasonably make the argument that legislative prayer is banned by the first amendment. At least there didn’t seem to be any conflict in the minds of the drafters of the first amendment.
I heard a bit of the oral argument on CSPAN and it seems like the plaintiffs were asking for:
No prayer at all to address the concerns of the athiests; or
Non-sectarianism that wouldn’t include any references to a specific god or religion(specifically no references to jesus Christ) to address the concerns of the non-Christians and followers of non-Abrahamic faiths.
In the absence of any of that, rules similar to what federal chaplains observe.
> [@Trinopus](#):
>
> What’s also highly instructive is the reaction of Christians on those very few instances when the invocation was non-Christian. They pitched a huge fit.
Wait till the pastafarians show up.
> [@mhendo](#):
>
> Yes, almost all were Christian, but as i said, the non-Christians only made an appearance after the plaintiffs began making noise. From Breyer’s dissent:If a school district only begins desegregation procedures after complaints are made and lawsuits are filed, it’s pretty hard to argue that the response justifies a claim that the system has always been fair. I think the same principle applies here.
The difference is that the segregation in the south was de jure segregation not de facto segregation. Here we had de facto protestant prayers but I saw no evidence that other faiths were prohibited from presenting their prayers.
I thought the opinion made it clear that the forum should be open to all faiths in the jurisdiction. At least on a going forward basis.
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