Is It Constitutional to Open a Town Meeting with a Prayer? This episode explores the constitutionality of opening town meetings with prayer, a debate highlighted by differing Supreme Court opinions in Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014). Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Majority, affirms the right of local government bodies to hold a prayer prior to conducting official business, maintaining that the history of the United States is consistent with such a practice, and thus, the Establishment Clause is not implicated. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting from the Court's opinion, argues that prayer prior to local town meetings is a violation of the Establishment Clause of the Constitution and is materially different from prayer held in other governmental forums, which had been previously upheld by the Court.
