Nontheists Need Not Participate

In Brevard County, FL., the Board of County Commissioners’has a policy that prohibits nontheists from delivering invocations at boardmeetings. On April 27^th, advocates urged the 11^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule this practice as a violation of both the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause, as the District Court already had. The federal lawsuit was initially filed in 2015 on the behalf of those who objected to the policy of not allowing atheists, Humanists or other nontheists to deliver secular invocations during public meetings but allowing those with monotheistic beliefs to solemnize. The US District Court had agreed that this policy and practice were unconstitutional and stated, “[T]he great promise of the Establishment Clause is that religion will not operate as an instrument of division in our nation. Regrettably, religion has become such an instrument in Brevard County.” The plaintiffs, five nontheist individuals and three nontheist organizations, reported feeling coerced into participating in the theistic prayers and felt excluded from the meetings, suffering emotional damages. The Commissioners posted on social media exhibiting severe hostility toward religion, posting messages such as, “It’s either ‘One Nation Under God’ or bite my ass and just leave!” and “…Atheist[s] do not count.” The brief from the decision of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in 2017 also stated, “[T]he policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court and this Court have both held that the Establishment Clause prohibits governmental bodies from discriminating based on religion in deciding who may give opening invocations. The County’s policy does exactly that.”

This case presents the issues of whether a governmental body can exclude citizens from the opportunity to offer invocations at meetings because they do not believe in God, and whether government officials can direct citizens to rise for invocations at legislative meetings. I think this is a clear case of establishment as well as a violation of the free exercise of religion. People are being coerced in these meetings to rise for prayers, partake in prayers and to subscribe to a theistic faith. There is open hostility toward other religious viewpoints, to the extent where people are being harassed on social media for their beliefs and are being barred from giving invocations at the meetings if they are advertising any beliefs that contradict those of the majority. This is encouraging the excessive entanglement of government and religion, as the members of the County Board are deciding which religions are legitimate enough to be involved in the invocations. The permitted invocations at the meetings are also paid for using tax dollars, according to the appellee’s brief, and using tax dollars in a religiously discriminatory way has already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Additionally, this was already ruled by the District Court as unconstitutional and the exclusionary practice was ordered to stop. Based on this and the clear violations of the First Amendment, I would assume the Court of Appeals would also rule this practice as being an unconstitutional establishment of religion as well as a violation of the free exercise clause. Even if one were to invoke the ruling of Marsh v. Chambers (1983) in which public prayer was allowed before legislative sessions by a chaplain, this case differs in that certain religions are blatantly being excluded and a policy has been created that prohibits other viewpoints from speaking. In Marsh v. Chambers representatives from other religions were allowed to speak, and although some were still uncomfortable and felt coerced by the mere presence of religious speech in a government setting, as Ernie Chambers reported, it was to a much different extent than in this case. In Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), prayer was permitted before legislative meetings, but it was determined there was no proof of discrimination of minority religions occurring or coercion. This is clearly not the case in Brevard County. Not ruling this as a violation of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses would set an extremely dangerous precedent of preferencing monotheistic religions, the government sponsorship of specific religions, and the blatant allowance for exclusion of religions that are not deemed as being worthy of receiving the same benefits and protections as majoritarian religions.