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11th Circuit Deems State-Sponsored Sectarian Invocations Permissible Under Rotating Faith System

Via How Appealing, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a panel of the 11th Circuit by a 2-1 majority today upheld as constitutional Cobb County, GA's practice of opening official commission meetings with sectarian prayers given by rotating clergy members from a diversity of faiths. Writing for the majority, Judge William Pryor argued that, once the rotation system renders moot the problem of associating the county commission with a particular faith, there is no need to prohibit sectarian prayer, both because Supreme Court precedent does not require it, and because the court is not able to draw that line:

Whether invocations of ?Lord of Lords? or ?the God of Abraham, Issac, and Mohammed? are ?sectarian? is best left to theologians, not courts of law.

More excerpts from the decision, and the dissent, in the extended entry.

Full post as published by Blog From The Capital on October 28, 2008 (boomark / email).