Pelphrey v. Cobb County, Ga.

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
October 28, 2008
No. 07-13611 THOMAS K. KAHN
________________________ CLERK

D. C. Docket No. 05-02075-CV-RWS-1

GARY PELPHREY,
a.k.a. Bats,
EDWARD BUCKNER,
ROBERTO MORAES,
JEFFREY SELMAN,
ROBERTA GOLDBERG,
a.k.a. Bobbi,
MARIE SHOCKLEY,

Plaintiffs-Appellants-
Cross-Appellees,

WESLEY CROWE, Plaintiff,

versus

COBB COUNTY, GEORGIA,
SAM OLENS,
in his official capacity as Chairman of the
Cobb County Commission and in his individual
capacity,
MURRAY HOMAN,
in his official capacity as Chairman of the
Cobb County Planning Commission and in his
individual capacity,
 Defendants-Appellees-
Cross-Appellants.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
_________________________

(October 28, 2008)

Before WILSON and PRYOR, Circuit Judges, and MIDDLEBROOKS,* District
Judge.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

The key issue in this appeal is whether the practice of two county

commissions that allow volunteer leaders of different religions, on a rotating basis,

to offer invocations with a variety of religious expressions violates the

Establishment Clause. Both the Cobb County Commission and the Cobb County

Planning Commission have a long tradition of opening their meetings with a prayer

offered by volunteer clergy or other members of the community. The clergy have

represented a variety of faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Unitarian

Universalism, and Judaism, and their diverse prayers have, at times, included

expressions of their religious faiths. Those expressions ordinarily have been brief

*
Honorable Donald M. Middlebrooks, United States District Judge for the Southern
District of Florida, sitting by designation.

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and often have occurred in the concluding phrase of the prayers. The prayers have

included references to “Jesus,” “Allah,” “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,”

“Mohammed,” and “Heavenly Father.” Seven Cobb County taxpayers filed suit to

enjoin the prayers.

The taxpayers argue that the Establishment Clause permits only nonsectarian

prayers for the meetings of the commissions, but we disagree. Marsh v. Chambers

makes clear that “[t]he content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where . . .

there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize

or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” 463 U.S. 783,

794–95, 103 S. Ct. 3330, 3337–38 (1983). The district court applied this standard,

found that the practice of the County Commission had not been exploitive, and

refused to parse the content of the prayers. The district court also found that the

practice of the Planning Commission had been exploitive during 2003 and 2004

and declared that practice unconstitutional. Because there is no clear error in either

finding by the district court, we refuse “to embark on a sensitive evaluation or to

parse the content of a particular prayer.” Id. at 795, 103 S. Ct. at 3338. 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. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

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 The Cobb County Commission and the Cobb County Planning Commission

have a long tradition of opening their meetings with prayer by volunteer clergy

invited by County personnel on a rotating basis. The prayers are offered by clergy

of a variety of faiths, including Christian, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and

Muslim. The majority of the speakers are Christian, and the commissions assert

that this presence reflects the composition of the religious institutions in Cobb

County. The taxpayers contend that, between 1998 and 2005, 96.6 percent of the

clergy, to the extent their faith was discernable, were Christian. During the same

period, adherents to the Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, Muslim, and Baha’i faiths

also provided invocations.

The commissions do not compose or censor the prayers. Over the past

decade, 70 percent of prayers before the County Commission and 68 percent of

prayers before the Planning Commission contained Christian references. Often the

prayers ended with references to “our Heavenly Father” or “in Jesus’ name we

pray.” Prayers also contained occasional references to the Jewish and Muslim

faiths, such as references to Passover, Hebrew prayers, Allah, and Mohammed.

Many prayers lacked what the taxpayers identify as sectarian references.

The commissions do not compensate those invited to pray, but the County

expends municipal funds, in the form of materials and personnel time, to select,

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invite, and thank the invocational speakers. The County Commission employs an

administrative specialist, and the Planning Commission employs a deputy clerk to

select the clergy. Both employees have autonomy in the selection of speakers, and

each has used a different method for selection.

Beverly Martin, the administrative specialist of the County Commission,

compiles a list of religious organizations in Cobb County from several sources,

including the Yellow Pages, the internet, and business cards. The list is organized

by denomination or faith and then by individual congregations. A majority of the

congregations on the list are Christian. Martin randomly selects the speaker and

avoids having speakers from the same religious group at consecutive meetings.

Several congregations are in Martin’s files, but are not included on the list. Other

congregations are not included in Martin’s files, but these congregations do not

appear in the Yellow Pages. Martin testified that she does not take into account the

beliefs held by a religious group when deciding whom to include on her list.

Sandra Richardson served as the deputy clerk of the Planning Commission

and applied a different method for selection of clergy that relied primarily on her

copy of the Yellow Pages. She has also relied on clergy who volunteer as part of

the chaplain program for the police and fire departments. A copy of the phone

book used by Richardson during 2003–2004 shows a dark, continuous line drawn

5
through the categories surrounding the “Churches” category in the Yellow Pages.

The line crosses through the “Chiropractors,” “Church Furnishings,” and “Church

Supplies” categories, among others. There is a similar, lighter line drawn through

several subcategories of churches: “Churches-Islamic,” “Churches-Jehovah’s

Witnesses,” “Churches-Jewish,” and “Churches-Latter Day Saints.” No clergy

from those subcategories were asked to provide the invocation during 2003–2004.

Richardson’s Yellow Pages for 2005 does not have similar notations, and

Richardson contacted both a mosque and a synagogue that year.

These practices later changed. After the commencement of this action, the

County consolidated the selection procedures of the Planning Commission and the

County Commission. Both commissions now use a master list to select randomly a

speaker to offer the prayer at a meeting.

Gary “Bats” Pelphrey, Edward Buckner, Roberto Moraes, Wesley Crowe,

Jeffrey Selman, Roberta “Bobbi” Goldberg, and Marie Shockley are taxpayers of

Cobb County who have attended meetings of the County Commission and

Planning Commission and have witnessed the invocations that begin each meeting.

The taxpayers complained to the commissions about the invocation practice, and

Selman provided a list of several other potential speakers to Commissioner Tim

Lee and Planning Commissioner Bob Ott. Neither commissioner provided this list

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to administrative personnel.

The commissions also received a request from the American Civil Liberties

Union to remove all “sectarian” references from the invocations. The commissions

refused to comply with the request, and this lawsuit ensued. In their complaint, the

taxpayers objected to sectarian prayers at commission meetings as unconstitutional

and asked the district court to enjoin the practice.

The district court issued three orders about the merits of this controversy.

The district court first denied the taxpayers’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

The court later entered findings of fact and conclusions of law and denied the

taxpayers’ request for a permanent injunction. The district court upheld the

invocations of the County Commission. The district court ruled that the Planning

Commission violated the Establishment Clause in 2003 and 2004 because of its

selection procedure, but the court upheld the remaining invocations. In a third

order, the district court held that the taxpayers had standing to challenge the

selection procedures used by the Planning Commission in 2003–2004 and awarded

them nominal damages. Both parties appealed. Crowe was dismissed from the

action during the pendency of this appeal.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review de novo the legal conclusions of the district court. Johnson v.

7
Booker T. Washington Broad. Serv., Inc., 234 F.3d 501, 507 (11th Cir. 2000).

Because the parties consented to resolution of the factual issues by the district

court, factual findings are reviewed for clear error. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a). “[A]s we

have explained, ‘[w]e cannot hold a district court’s finding of fact clearly

erroneous unless, in view of the entire record, we are left with a definite and firm

conviction that a mistake has been committed.’” Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F.3d

1282, 1291 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting Eng’g Contractors Ass’n v. Metropolitan

Dade County, 122 F.3d 895, 904 (11th Cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks

omitted)).

III. DISCUSSION

The Establishment Clause, which applies to the states through the Fourteenth

Amendment, provides that the government “shall make no law respecting an

establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” U.S. Const.

Amend. I; Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 15, 67 S. Ct. 504, 511 (1947).

“The clearest command of the Establishment Clause is that one religious

denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.” Larson v. Valente, 456

U.S. 228, 244, 102 S. Ct. 1673, 1683 (1982). “Establishment Clause challenges

are not decided by bright-line rules, but on a case-by-case basis with the result

turning on the specific facts.” Glassroth, 335 F.3d at 1288 (citation omitted).

8
“[T]he inquiry calls for line-drawing; no fixed, per se rule can be framed.” Lynch

v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 678, 104 S. Ct. 1355, 1362 (1984).

Our discussion of the facts found by the district court and the issues in this

appeal is divided into three parts. We first review the jurisprudence that governs

legislative prayer. Second, we review for clear error the findings of the district

court in support of its judgment that the practices of the County do not violate the

Establishment Clause. Third, we turn to the arguments of the Planning

Commission that the taxpayers lacked standing to complain about its practice in

2003 and 2004 and that the finding by the district court about that practice is

clearly erroneous.

A. The Establishment Clause Permits Legislative Prayer Not Exploited To
Advance or Disparage Religion.

Our “delicate and fact-sensitive” inquiry is evident in the area of legislative

prayer, which the Supreme Court, in Marsh, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S. Ct. 3330,

excepted from the traditional analysis under the Establishment Clause. See Lee v.

Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 597, 112 S. Ct. 2649, 2660–61 (1992). Marsh involved a

challenge to invocations offered by a state-employed chaplain at the beginning of

each session of the Nebraska Legislature. 463 U.S. at 784, 103 S. Ct. at 3332. The

Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had applied the three-part inquiry from

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S. Ct. 2105 (1971), and concluded that the

9
invocations violated the Establishment Clause. Marsh, 463 U.S. at 786, 103 S. Ct.

at 3333. The Supreme Court reversed and, without applying Lemon, upheld the

Nebraska legislative prayer practice as an act that was “deeply embedded in the

history and tradition of this country” that had not “been exploited to proselytize[,] .

. . advance[,] . . . or . . . disparage any . . . faith or belief.” Id. at 786, 794–95, 103

S. Ct. at 3333, 3338.

The Court recounted the history of legislative prayer, which began with the

decision of the Continental Congress to “open[] its sessions with a prayer offered

by a paid chaplain” and “continued without interruption ever since [the first]

session of Congress.” Id. at 787–88, 103 S. Ct. at 3333–34. The Court explained

that, in the days after Congress approved paid chaplains for the Senate and House

of Representatives, the Founding Fathers reached a final agreement on the

language of the Bill of Rights. Id. at 788, 103 S. Ct. at 3334. In the light of this

history, the Court concluded that “[c]learly the men who wrote the First

Amendment Religion Clauses did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening

prayers as a violation of that Amendment.” Id. Based on that “unambiguous and

unbroken history of more than 200 years,” the Court ruled that the practice of

legislative prayer “[t]o invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with

making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an ‘establishment’ of religion or a

10
step toward establishment . . . .” Id. at 792, 103 S. Ct. at 3336.

The Court examined the practice of the Nebraska Legislature and determined

that the use of a chaplain of one denomination did not violate the Establishment

Clause. That chaplain held the position for sixteen years, was paid out of public

funds, and offered prayers in the “Judeo-Christian tradition.” Id. at 793, 103 S. Ct.

at 3337. The Court discussed the lengthy tenure of the chaplain and held, “[a]bsent

proof that the chaplain’s reappointment stemmed from an impermissible motive, . .

. long tenure does not in itself conflict with the Establishment Clause.” Id. at

793–94, 103 S. Ct. at 3337. The Court also ruled the payment of the chaplain out

of public funds did not violate the First Amendment. Id. at 794, 103 S. Ct. at 3337.

The Court then turned to the prayers in the Judeo-Christian tradition and

refused to evaluate their content because the prayers had not been exploited to

advance or disparage any religion:

The content of the prayer is not of concern to judges where, as here,
there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to
proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or
belief. That being so, it is not for us to embark on a sensitive
evaluation or to parse the content of a particular prayer.

Id. at 794–95, 103 S. Ct. at 3337–38. The Court concluded that, when “[w]eighed

against the historical background, these factors [the identity and selection of the

chaplain and the Judeo-Christian nature of the prayers] do not serve to invalidate

11
Nebraska’s [legislative prayer] practice.” Id. at 793, 103 S. Ct. at 3337.

Since Marsh, the Supreme Court has provided guidance as to the permissible

boundaries of legislative prayer in County of Allegheny v. ACLU Greater

Pittsburgh Chapter, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S. Ct. 3086 (1989), and Lee, 505 U.S. 577,

112 S. Ct. 2649. Allegheny prohibited the display of religious symbols in public

buildings that had “the purpose or effect of ‘endorsing’” a particular faith. 492

U.S. at 592, 597, 109 S. Ct. at 3100, 3103. Lee restricted the role of the

government in determining the content of prayer. 505 U.S. at 588–89, 112 S. Ct. at

2656. Both Allegheny and Lee provide insight about the boundaries for legislative

prayer.

In Allegheny, the Supreme Court judged the “unique circumstances” of the

appeal and concluded that the display of a creche in a public building had the

“effect of promoting or endorsing religious beliefs” and violated the Establishment

Clause, although the display of a menorah did not. Allegheny, 492 U.S. at

595–602, 620–21, 109 S. Ct. at 3102–05, 3115. Justice Kennedy dissented

because he could not “comprehend” how the creche was unconstitutional when the

legislative prayers upheld in Marsh were constitutional. Id. at 665, 109 S. Ct. at

3139 (Kennedy, J., dissenting). He urged the application of the Marsh standard to

other religious practices and displays and suggested “the meaning of the

12
[Establishment] Clause is to be determined by reference to historical practices and

understandings.” Id. at 670, 109 S. Ct. at 3142.

In response to Justice Kennedy’s dissent, the majority distinguished Marsh

as applying to legislative prayer and refused to extend the historical reasoning of

Marsh to other religious practices. Id. at 602–13, 109 S. Ct. at 3106–11 (majority

opinion). The Court reiterated the fact-specific nature of its review under the

Establishment Clause. Id. at 602–03, 109 S. Ct. at 3106. The Court stated that

Marsh recognized that “legislative prayers that have the effect of affiliating the

government with any one specific faith or belief” violate the Establishment Clause.

Id. at 603, 109 S. Ct. at 3106 (citation omitted).

The Court explained that history could not “legitimate practices that

demonstrate the government’s allegiance to a particular sect or creed,” even though

history “may affect the constitutionality of nonsectarian references to religion by

the government . . . .” Id. at 603, 109 S. Ct. at 3106. Marsh was consistent with

this principle because it upheld a practice that did not tend to establish religion:

Marsh itself . . . recognized that not even the “unique history” of
legislative prayer can justify contemporary legislative prayers that
have the effect of affiliating the government with any one specific
faith or belief. The legislative prayers involved in Marsh did not
violate this principle because the particular chaplain had “removed all
references to Christ.”

Id. (citations omitted). The Court concluded that “Marsh plainly does not stand for

13
the sweeping proposition Justice Kennedy apparently would ascribe to it, namely,

that all accepted practices 200 years old and their equivalents are constitutional

today.” Id.

In Lee, the Court clarified that the government ordinarily should have no

role in determining the content of public prayers. Public school officials had asked

a rabbi to provide a “nonsectarian” invocation at a graduation ceremony. Lee, 505

U.S. at 581, 112 S. Ct. at 2652. The Court held that even that “nonsectarian”

prayer violated the Establishment Clause. Id. at 599, 112 S. Ct. at 2661. The

Court ruled that the principal should not have provided the rabbi with guidelines

for the invocation and “directed and controlled the content of the prayers.” Id. at

588, 112 S. Ct. at 2656. “It is a cornerstone principle of our Establishment Clause

jurisprudence that ‘it is no part of the business of government to compose official

prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious

program carried on by government’ . . . .” Id. (quoting Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S.

421, 425, 82 S. Ct. 1261, 1264 (1962)).

Marsh, as informed by Allegheny and Lee, controls our review of the

constitutionality of legislative prayers. The district court concluded that these

decisions direct us not to inquire into the content of prayers for “legislative and

other deliberative public bodies” unless “the prayer opportunity has been

14
exploited” to advance or disparage a belief, Marsh, 463 U.S. at 786, 794, 103 S.

Ct. at 3333, 3338, or affiliated the government with a specific faith, Allegheny, 492

U.S. at 603, 109 S. Ct. at 3106. We agree.

The taxpayers argue that Marsh permits only “nonsectarian” prayers for

commission meetings, but their reading is contrary to the command of Marsh that

courts are not to evaluate the content of the prayers absent evidence of exploitation.

The taxpayers rely on the acknowledgment by the Supreme Court in Marsh that the

chaplain had “removed all references to Christ” after 1980 and offered

“nonsectarian” prayers at the time of the challenge. Marsh, 463 U.S. at 793 n.14,

103 S. Ct. at 3337 n.14. The Court provided these descriptions of the prayers in a

footnote, but the Court never held that the prayers in Marsh were constitutional

because they were “nonsectarian.” See id. Nor did the Court define that term. See

id. To read Marsh as allowing only nonsectarian prayers is at odds with the clear

directive by the Court that the content of a legislative prayer “is not of concern to

judges where . . . there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been

exploited to proselytize or advance any one . . . faith or belief.” Id. at 794–95, 103

S. Ct. at 3337–38.

The Marsh Court considered several factors to determine whether the

legislative prayers had been exploited to advance one faith. The Court weighed the

15
chaplain’s religious affiliation, his tenure, and the overall nature of his prayers. Id.

at 792–95, 103 S. Ct. at 3336–38. The “nonsectarian” nature of the chaplain’s

prayers was one factor in this fact-intensive analysis; it did not form the basis for a

bright-line rule.

The taxpayers argue that Allegheny requires us to read Marsh narrowly to

permit only nonsectarian prayer, but they are wrong. Allegheny does not require

that legislative prayer conform to the model in Marsh. Allegheny instead reiterates

the lesson of Marsh that legislative prayers should not “demonstrate a

[government] preference for one particular sect or creed . . . .” See Allegheny, 492

U.S. at 605, 109 S. Ct. at 3107. When legislative prayers do not “have the effect of

affiliating the government with any one specific faith or belief,” id. at 603, 109 S.

Ct. at 3106 (citation omitted), “it is not for [the court] to embark on a sensitive

evaluation or to parse the content of a particular prayer.” Marsh, 463 U.S. at 795,

103 S. Ct. at 3338.

We would not know where to begin to demarcate the boundary between

sectarian and nonsectarian expressions, and the taxpayers have been opaque in

explaining that standard. Even the individual taxpayers cannot agree on which

expressions are “sectarian.” Bats, one of the taxpayers, testified that a prohibition

of “sectarian” references would preclude the use of “father,” “Allah,” and

16
“Zoraster” but would allow “God” and “Jehovah.” Selman, another taxpayer,

testified, “[Y]ou can’t say Jesus, . . . Jehovah, . . . [or] Wicca . . . .” Selman also

deemed “lord or father” impermissible.

The taxpayers’ counsel fared no better than his clients in providing a

consistent and workable definition of sectarian expressions. In the district court,

counsel for the taxpayers deemed “Heavenly Father” and “Lord” nonsectarian,

even though his clients testified to the contrary. At the hearing for oral arguments

before this Court, the taxpayers’ counsel asserted two standards to determine when

references are impermissibly “sectarian.” Counsel for the taxpayers first stated, “It

is sectarian when the . . . prayer has the effect of affiliating the government with

one specific faith or belief,” but he later described a reference as “sectarian” when

it “invokes the name of a divinity . . . in which only one faith believes.” Counsel

had difficulty applying either standard to various religious expressions. When

asked, for example, whether “King of kings” was sectarian, he replied, “King of

kings may be a tough one. . . . It is arguably a reference to one God. . . . I think it

is safe to conclude that it might not be sectarian.”

The difficulty experienced by taxpayers’ counsel is a glimpse of what county

commissions, city councils, legislatures, and courts would encounter if we adopted

the taxpayers’ indeterminate standard. As the taxpayers’ counsel conceded at oral

17
arguments, “the line is not completely bright between sectarian and nonsectarian.”

On that score, we are in complete agreement with the taxpayers’ counsel.

The taxpayers erroneously contend that several other circuits have read

Marsh to permit only nonsectarian prayer. A review of the precedents of our sister

circuits establishes that they have not reached a consensus on the permissibility of

sectarian references in legislative prayers. Two of the circuits read Marsh as we

do. The remaining four circuits have not reached a decision about sectarian

references in legislative prayers.

The Fourth Circuit has not read Marsh to bar legislative prayers that contain

a variety of religious expressions. In its first decision to address Marsh, the Fourth

Circuit concluded that the prayers of a city council that contained references to

“Jesus Christ” were inconsistent with Marsh because the prayers “contain[ed]

explicit references to a deity in whose divinity only those of one faith believe.”

Wynne v. Town of Great Falls, S.C., 376 F.3d 292, 301 (4th Cir. 2004). The court

understood Marsh and Allegheny, as we do, to “teach that a legislative body cannot

. . . ‘exploit’ [a] prayer opportunity to ‘affiliate’ the Government with one specific

faith or belief . . . .” Id. at 298.

In its second decision, the Fourth Circuit read Marsh, as we do, to allow a

county to invite clergy from diverse faiths to offer “a wide variety of prayers” at

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meetings of its governing body. Simpson v. Chesterfield County Bd. of

Supervisors, 404 F.3d 276, 284 (4th Cir. 2005) (Wilkinson, J.). The prayers

included “wide and embracive terms” such as “‘Lord God, our creator,’ ‘giver and

sustainer of life,’ ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,’ ‘the God of Abraham, of

Moses, Jesus, and Mohammad,’ ‘Heavenly Father,’ ‘Lord our Governor,’ ‘mighty

God,’ ‘Lord of Lords, King of Kings, creator of planet Earth and the universe and

our own creator.’” Id. at 284. The court stated that “a practice would remain

constitutionally unremarkable where ‘there is no indication that the prayer

opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage

any other, faith or belief.’” Id. at 283 (quoting Marsh, 463 U.S. at 794–95, 103 S.

Ct. at 3338). The court distinguished Wynne on the ground that the prayers of the

city council had been exploitive because their “pervasively and exclusively

sectarian nature” had “undermined . . . participation by persons of all faiths in

public life.” Id.

The Simpson court praised the County for its practice of prayer being “in

many ways more inclusive than that approved by the Marsh Court.” Id. at 285.

The County relied on voluntary clergy and “welcome[d] rabbis, imams, priests,

pastors, and ministers” who represented “a wide cross-section of the County’s

religious leaders.” Id. The court explained that invalidating a practice of prayer

19
more inclusive than that upheld in Marsh “would achieve a particularly perverse

result”; a cramped reading of Marsh “would push localities intent on avoiding

litigation to select only one minister from only one faith.” Id. at 287. That

consequence would make “America and its public events more insular and

sectarian rather than less so.” Id.

This year, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the Fourth Circuit, read

Marsh to allow invocations offered during meetings of a city council. Turner v.

City Council of City of Fredericksburg, Va., 534 F.3d 352, 356 (4th Cir. 2008).

The city council permitted only nondenominational prayers at its meetings, and

Turner, a member of the council who had not been allowed to offer a sectarian

prayer, challenged that policy. Id. at 354. The Fourth Circuit upheld the policy

and applied the same standard from Marsh that we apply today: “So long as the

prayer is not used to advance a particular religion or to disparage another faith or

belief, courts ought not to ‘parse the content of a particular prayer.’” Id. at 356

(quoting Marsh, 463 U.S. at 795, 103 S. Ct. at 3338). Although it upheld the

policy of the council, the Fourth Circuit expressly declined to hold that Marsh

required a policy of nondenominational prayers: “We need not decide whether the

Establishment Clause compelled the Council to adopt their legislative prayer

policy, because the Establishment Clause does not absolutely dictate the form of

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legislative prayer.” Id. Because the invocations in Turner, like the invocations in

Marsh, “recognized the rich religious heritage of our country in a fashion that was

designed to include members of the community, rather than to proselytize[,]”

Justice O’Connor wrote that they fell “squarely within the range of conduct

permitted by Marsh and Simpson.” Id. As the Fourth Circuit recognized, Marsh

permits a range of prayers to be offered during local, state, or federal legislative

meetings. Id.

The Tenth Circuit also has stated that Marsh does not categorically prohibit

prayers that invoke “particular concept[s] of God.” Snyder v. Murray City Corp.,

159 F.3d 1227, 1233–34, 1234 n.10 (10th Cir. 1998) (en banc). The Tenth Circuit

upheld the decision of a city council to deny a citizen’s request to offer a prayer

that “aggressively proselytize[d] for his particular religious views and strongly

disparage[d] other religious views.” Id. at 1235. The court read Marsh to hold that

legislative prayer is unconstitutional “when ‘the prayer opportunity has been

exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or

belief.’” Id. at 1233–34 (quoting Marsh, 463 U.S. at 794–95, 103 S. Ct. 3338).

Contrary to the taxpayers’ argument, the Fifth Circuit, the Seventh Circuit,

and the Ninth Circuit have not decided the constitutionality of sectarian references

in legislative prayers. The decision of the Fifth Circuit that the taxpayers cite, Doe

21
v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board (Doe I), 473 F.3d 188, 202–05 (5th Cir. 2006),

was fractured, with the panel split three ways, and the en banc court vacated that

decision, granted rehearing, and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of

standing. Doe v. Tangipahoa Parish Sch. Bd. (Doe II), 494 F.3d 494 (5th Cir.

2007) (en banc). Although the Seventh Circuit initially stated that Marsh “hing[ed]

on the nonsectarian” nature of the prayers and denied a request for a stay of an

injunction against the practice of the Indiana Legislature, Hinrichs v. Bosma

(Hinrichs I), 440 F.3d 393, 394–95, 399 (7th Cir. 2006), the Seventh Circuit later

reversed that injunction and, like the Fifth Circuit in Doe II, remanded with

instructions to dismiss for lack of standing. Hinrichs v. Speaker of the House of

Representatives of the Ind. Gen. Assembly (Hinrichs II), 506 F.3d 584, 585 (7th

Cir. 2007). The taxpayers also rely on Bacus v. Palo Verde Unified School District

Board of Education, 52 Fed. Appx. 355 (9th Cir. 2002) (unpublished opinion), to

suggest that the Ninth Circuit has prohibited sectarian references in legislative

prayers, but Bacus is an unpublished decision that concerned prayers offered only

“in the Name of Jesus” at the meetings of a school board. Id. at 356. The court

stated that it “need not decide whether the prayers ‘in the Name of Jesus’ would be

a permissible solemnization of a legislature-like body, provided that invocations

were, as is traditional in Congress, rotated among leaders of different faiths, sects,

22
and denominations.” Id. As an unpublished opinion, Bacus has no precedential

effect in the Ninth Circuit. See Ninth Cir. R. 36-3.

The Sixth Circuit stated, in dicta, decades ago that Marsh permits only

nonsectarian prayers, but that decision involved public school graduations, not

legislative bodies. Stein v. Plainwell Cmty. Sch., 822 F.2d 1406, 1409 (6th Cir.

1987). The graduation ceremonies included invocations that “employ[ed] the

language of Christian theology and prayer.” Id. at 1410. The Supreme Court has

since rejected the application of Marsh to prayer at public school graduations. See

Lee, 505 U.S. at 597, 112 S. Ct. at 2660–61.

Contrary to the taxpayers’ argument, there is no clear consensus among our

sister circuits about sectarian references in legislative prayer, but we read Marsh, as

the Fourth Circuit and the Tenth Circuit do, to forbid judicial scrutiny of the

content of prayers absent evidence that the legislative prayers have been exploited

to advance or disparage a religion. The taxpayers would have us parse legislative

prayers for sectarian references even when the practice of legislative prayers has

been far more inclusive than the practice upheld in Marsh. We decline this role of

“ecclesiastical arbiter,” Marsh, 463 U.S. at 821, 103 S. Ct. at 3351 (Brennan, J.,

dissenting), for it “would achieve a particularly perverse result.” Simpson, 404

F.3d at 287.

23
 B. The Commissions Are Legislative Bodies Governed by Marsh.

The prayers of the commissions are governed by Marsh. Contrary to the

assertion of the dissent, we are not adopting a broad interpretation of Marsh that

would “authorize prayer at virtually every government meeting.” Marsh applies to

legislative bodies. As the Supreme Court stated in Marsh, “[T]here can be no

doubt that the practice of opening legislative sessions with prayer has become part

of the fabric of our society. To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted

with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an ‘establishment’ of religion

or a step toward establishment . . . .” Marsh, 463 U.S. at 792, 103 S. Ct. at 3336.

The Cobb County Commission is “a public body entrusted with making the laws,”

see id.; Ga. Const. Art. IX, § II, ¶ I, and the Planning Commission is a creature of

the Cobb County Commission that assists its work. See 2 Acts and Resolutions of

the General Assembly of the State of Georgia 1956, at 2006–19; 2 Acts and

Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia 1974, at 3873–96.

The dissent argues, and we agree, that we should look to state law to

determine whether each commission is a legislative body, but the dissent ignores

the clear law of Georgia that county commissions are legislative bodies. The

Constitution of Georgia, which is the ultimate touchstone, declares, “The

governing authority of each county shall have legislative power . . . .” Ga. Const.

24
Art. IX, § II, ¶ I (emphasis added). The Code of Georgia defines the “County

governing authority” as “the board of county commissioners, the sole county

commissioner, or the governing authority of a consolidated government.” Ga.

Code Ann. § 1-3-3. The Code vests the commission with legislative powers

similar to those exercised by Congress and state legislatures: the power to control

property, Ga. Code Ann. § 36-5-22.1(a)(1); levy general and special taxes, id. § 36-

5-22.1(a)(2); establish roads, id. § 36-5-22.1(a)(3); make rules and regulations for

the county, id. § 36-5-22.1(a)(8); and adopt a county budget, id. § 36-81-3. Cf.

U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8; id. Art. IV, § 3; 2 U.S.C. § 642; Ga. Const. Art. III, § I, ¶ 1;

id. Art. III, § VI.

The dissent is unable to cite a single decision from this Court or a sister

circuit that supports the novel proposition that a local commission or council is not

a legislative body governed by Marsh. Every other circuit that has considered the

permissibility of invocations by municipal councils and county commissions has

applied the Marsh standard. Justice O’Connor, writing for the Fourth Circuit in

Turner, applied Marsh to a city council and stated, “The Council’s decision to open

its legislative meetings with nondenominational prayers does not violate the

Establishment Clause.” 534 F.3d at 356. In Simpson, the Fourth Circuit ruled that

a county board of supervisors is a deliberative body governed by Marsh, 404 F.3d

25
at 278, and in Snyder, the Tenth Circuit applied Marsh to a city council. 159 F.3d

at 1228. To our knowledge, no court has even suggested that Marsh does not apply

to local legislative bodies, and neither the taxpayers nor the County advanced the

argument that the commissions are not legislative bodies within the meaning of

Marsh at any stage of this litigation.

The dissent would limit the application of Marsh to state and federal

governments, but neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever applied to

local governments standards different from the ordinary requirements of the

Establishment Clause. See McCreary County, Ky. v. ACLU of Ky., 545 U.S. 844,

125 S. Ct. 2722 (2005); Allegheny, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S. Ct. 3086; King v.

Richmond County, Ga., 331 F.3d 1271 (11th Cir. 2003). We instead have applied

the precedents of the Supreme Court irrespective of the level of government

involved. In Glassroth, a decision cited extensively by the dissent, this Court

applied Allegheny, which involved a religious display at a county courthouse, to a

religious monument in a state judicial building. 335 F.3d at 1294. We also cited

with approval decisions of our sister circuits that addressed the presence of

religious symbols in county courthouses and municipal buildings. Id. at 1300. The

decisions of the Supreme Court have not applied varying standards based on the

level of government, and we find no reason to adopt this artificial distinction now.

26
 The dissent asserts that Marsh permits legislative prayer only when the

invocations of the governing body are part of an “ancient . . . practice.” The

dissent refuses to apply Marsh to the commissions because they were established in

1964 and 1956 and do not “have a ‘practice of over a century’ of invocation

prayers as did the Nebraska legislature” in Marsh. This reasoning is plainly wrong.

Nothing in Marsh suggests that the tolerance of legislative prayer, under the

Establishment Clause, applies unequally to legislative bodies based on the date the

legislative body was formally established. Based on the reasoning of the dissent,

Marsh would permit the Boston city council, established in 1822, to engage in

legislative prayer, Josiah Quincy, A Municipal History of the Town and City of

Boston, During Two Centuries 32–33 (Boston, Charles C. Little & James Brown,

1852), but Marsh would forbid similar legislative prayers by the state legislature in

Alaska, which achieved statehood in 1959. Claus-M. Naske & Herman E.

Slotnick, Alaska: A History of the 49th State 166 (2d ed. 1994). Marsh does not

require that absurd result.

The dissent misapplies decisions about prayer in public schools and religious

monuments to support its argument that we should apply the test from Lemon

instead of the standard established in Marsh, but the Supreme Court has rejected

this reasoning. The Supreme Court has explained that its decisions on school

27
prayer are unique because “heightened concerns” are present in elementary and

secondary public schools. Lee, 505 U.S. at 592, 112 S. Ct. at 2658; Van Orden v.

Perry, 545 U.S. 677, 691, 125 S. Ct. 2854, 2863–64 (2005) (plurality opinion).

The Court has recognized that there are “[i]nherent differences” between public

schools and legislative bodies. Lee, 505 U.S. at 596, 112 S. Ct. at 2660. As

Justice O’Connor explained for the Fourth Circuit in Turner, “The Supreme Court

of the United States has treated legislative prayer differently from prayer at school

events . . . .” 534 F.3d at 356. The same is true about decisions regarding religious

monuments. In Allegheny, the Supreme Court refused to apply the same test for a

religious display that the Court applied to legislative prayer. 492 U.S. at 602–13,

109 S. Ct. at 3106–11. For that reason, we too have distinguished between

legislative prayers and religious monuments. See Glassroth, 335 F.3d at 1297–98.

The dissent labels Marsh an “outlier” and contends that “the Supreme Court

consistently has applied the Lemon test,” but three years ago, the Supreme Court

said otherwise: “Many of our recent decisions simply have not applied the Lemon

test. Others have applied it only after concluding that the challenged practice was

invalid under a different Establishment Clause test.” Van Orden, 545 U.S. at 686,

125 S. Ct. at 2861 (internal citations omitted). The dissent contends that the

Supreme Court has never expanded the Marsh exception, but the Supreme Court,

28
in the last twenty-five years, also has not retreated from its decision in Marsh.

Indeed, that decision was not the last time the Supreme Court considered historical

practice to resolve a case under the Establishment Clause. In Van Orden, the Court

stated that its decision to allow a monument of the Ten Commandments on state

grounds was “driven both by the nature of the monument and by our Nation’s

history.” Id. The Court then reiterated, “We have acknowledged . . . that ‘religion

has been closely identified with our history and government . . .’” Id. at 687, 125

S. Ct. at 2861–62 (quoting Sch. Dist. of Abington Twp. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203,

212, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 1566 (1963)).

The dissent asserts that “it defies logic” to permit legislative prayer in the

same building where a religious monument may be prohibited, but that line was

drawn by the Supreme Court, not us. Compare Marsh, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S. Ct.

3330, with Allegheny, 492 U.S. 573, 109 S. Ct. 3086. Our application of

precedents regarding the Establishment Clause requires “the exercise of legal

judgment. That judgment is not a personal judgment.” Van Orden, 545 U.S. at

700, 125 S. Ct. at 2869 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment) (citation omitted).

We are bound to apply Marsh faithfully to “legislative and other deliberative

public bodies.” See Marsh, 463 U.S. at 786, 103 S. Ct. at 3333.

C. The District Court Did Not Clearly Err When It Found that the Prayers of the
County Commission Did Not Advance or Disparage a Religion.

29
 In a series of thorough, meticulous, and well-reasoned orders, the district

court evaluated the prayers of each commission as a whole and considered three

factors to determine whether the prayers had been exploited to affiliate the county

with a particular faith: the identity of the invocational speakers, the selection

procedures employed, and the nature of the prayers. Our main task is to evaluate

whether the factual findings by the district court, which we review for clear error,

are supported by the record. The district court found that the prayers of the county

commission had not “‘been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to

disparage any other, faith or belief[,]’” or had “‘the effect of affiliating the

government with any one specific faith or belief.’” Pelphrey v. Cobb County, Ga.,

448 F. Supp. 2d 1357, 1370 (N.D. Ga. 2006) (quoting Marsh, 463 U.S. at 794–95,

103 S. Ct. at 3338, and Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 603, 109 S. Ct. at 3106).

1. The Findings that the Identity of the Speakers and the Nature of the Prayers Did
Not Advance a Single Religion Are Not Clearly Erroneous.

The district court did not clearly err when it found that the County did not

exploit the prayers to advance one faith by using predominantly Christian speakers.

Although the majority of speakers were Christian, the parties agree that prayers

were also offered by members of the Jewish, Unitarian, and Muslim faiths. This

diversity of speakers, in contrast with the chaplain of one denomination allowed in

Marsh, supports the finding that the County did not exploit the prayers to advance

30
any one religion. The speakers, like those in Simpson, represented “a wide cross-

section of the County’s religious leaders.” Simpson, 404 F.3d at 285.

The finding that the diverse references in the prayers, viewed cumulatively,

did not advance a single faith also was not clearly erroneous. The prayers included

references from Christianity and other faiths, which the district court found

“tend[ed] to further militate against a finding that the Commissions’ practices” had

been exploited to affiliate the government with a particular faith. Pelphrey, 448 F.

Supp. 2d at 1370. Most of the references were brief and occurred at the end of

each prayer. Some prayers included references to “Jesus Christ,” but others

referenced “Allah,” “Mohammed,” and the Torah. Prayers included a variety of

terms, such as “king of kings and lord of lords,” “Heavenly Father,” and “God of

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God of history, Lord of creation, Lord of love, our

Father . . . .” The diversity of the religious expressions, in contrast with the prayers

in the Judeo-Christian tradition allowed in Marsh, supports the finding that the

prayers, taken as a whole, did not advance any particular faith.

2. The Finding that the Selection Process of the County Commission Was Not
Based on an Impermissible Motive Is Not Clearly Erroneous.

The district court did not clearly err when it found that the procedures

employed by the County Commission were not motivated by an improper motive.

Pelphrey, 448 F. Supp. 2d at 1373. Marsh prohibited the selection of invocational

31
speakers based on an “impermissible motive” to prefer certain beliefs over others.

463 U.S. at 793–94, 103 S. Ct. at 3336–37. The County Commission compiled the

list of potential speakers from various sources and included diverse religious

institutions, including a mosque and three synagogues. Martin testified that she

did not exclude religious institutions based on their beliefs, and the record

establishes that, in many instances, Martin was unfamiliar with the beliefs of the

institutions.

The district court also did not err by finding that the failure of two

commissioners to forward a list of potential speakers prepared by Selman was not

prompted by an “impermissible motive.” Pelphrey, 448 F. Supp. 2d at 1370–72. It

was not the practice of the commissioners to make suggestions about the faiths

represented on the list of potential speakers or particular invocational speakers, and

at least one of the commissioners was unaware of who invited the invocational

speakers. Nothing in the record suggests any improper motive on the part of the

commissioners, and the district court did not clearly err when it found this failure

in communication did not rise to the level of an “impermissible motive.”

3. We Will Not Parse or Censor the Legislative Prayers.

Because there is no clear error in the findings that the prayers of the County

Commission were not exploited to advance one faith or belief, we need not

32
evaluate the content of the prayers. The federal judiciary has no business in

“‘compos[ing] official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a

part of a religious program carried on by government . . . .’” Lee, 505 U.S. at 588,

112 S. Ct. at 2656 (quoting Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. at 425, 82 S. Ct. at 1264).

We affirm the ruling of the district court that the prayers of the County

Commission do not violate the Establishment Clause.

D. The District Court Did Not Err When It Ruled that the Prayers of the Planning
Commission in 2003 and 2004 Were Unconstitutional.

The district court applied the same analysis to the prayers of the Planning

Commission during 2003 and 2004 and concluded that those prayers were

unconstitutional based on the selection procedures. The district court found that

two of the practices of the Planning Commission – the identity of speakers and

content of the prayers – mirrored the practices of the County Commission and, as

previously discussed, did not run afoul of the Constitution. The district court

determined that the third factor – the selection process employed by the Planning

Commission – violated the Establishment Clause during 2003 and 2004 because it

“categorically excluded” certain faiths. Pelphrey, 448 F. Supp. 2d at 1373.

The Planning Commission argues that the taxpayers lack standing to

challenge the prayers that occurred in 2003 and 2004, and, alternatively, the

finding of the district court is clearly erroneous. We disagree on both counts. We

33
conclude that the taxpayers have both traditional standing under Article III and

taxpayer standing. We also conclude that the finding of the district court is

supported by the record and is not clearly erroneous.

1. The Taxpayers Have Standing To Challenge the Practice of the Planning
Commission During 2003–2004.

The taxpayers have both traditional and taxpayer standing to challenge the

constitutionality of the prayer practice of the Planning Commission. The issue of

standing is a “threshold one” that we review de novo. Glassroth, 335 F.3d at

1291–92. The three elements of standing – injury, traceability, and redressability –

are well-settled:

To satisfy the “case” or “controversy” requirement of Article III,
which is the “irreducible constitutional minimum” of standing, a
plaintiff must, generally speaking, demonstrate that he has suffered
“injury in fact,” that the injury is “fairly traceable” to the actions of
the defendant, and that the injury will likely be redressed by a
favorable decision.

Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 162, 117 S. Ct. 1154, 1161 (1997); Glassroth, 335

F.3d at 1292. The district court held that the taxpayers satisfied the requirements

for both traditional and taxpayer standing. The parties dispute whether the

taxpayers suffered an “injury in fact.”

a. The Taxpayers Have Standing Under Article III Based on Their Direct Contact
with the Offensive Practice.

Traditional standing under Article III for Establishment Clause claims based

34
on non-economic harms requires the plaintiffs to “identify ‘a personal injury

suffered by them as a consequence of the alleged constitutional error.’” Glassroth,

335 F.3d at 1292 (quoting Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for

Separation of Church & State, Inc., 454 U.S. 464, 485, 102 S. Ct. 752, 765 (1982))

(emphasis omitted). An actual injury occurs if the plaintiff is “subjected to

unwelcome religious statements” and is “‘directly affected by the laws and

practices against [which his or her] complaints are directed.’” Saladin v. City of

Milledgeville, 812 F.2d 687, 692 (11th Cir. 1987) (quoting Sch. Dist. of Abington

Twp. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. at 224 n.9, 83 S. Ct. at 1572 n.9). In Saladin, several

citizens challenged the constitutionality of a city seal that included the word

“Christianity.” 812 F.2d at 688–89. This Court concluded that the plaintiffs’

“direct contact with the offensive conduct” of the City through the receipt of

stationery bearing the seal was a sufficient injury for standing. Id. at 692–93.

Selman, one of the taxpayers, suffered a personal injury sufficient to confer

standing because he had direct contact with the practice of the Planning

Commission during 2003–2004. The district court found that Selman attended

three Planning Commission meetings in person and viewed additional Planning

Commission meetings via the internet, during which invocations were given. The

record confirms that Selman attended his first County Commission meeting in

35
February 2003, and since then, he has attended three Planning Commission

meetings and has witnessed the invocation at each. He has also watched numerous

meetings of the Planning Commission on the internet since 2003. Because the

record allows an inference that Selman observed a meeting of the Planning

Commission in 2003 or 2004, the district court did not clearly err when it found

that Selman had direct contact with the offensive invocational practices of the

Planning Commission. This contact is sufficient to establish the personal and

individualized injury necessary for standing. Because one plaintiff has standing,

we need not consider whether the other plaintiffs had sufficient contact with the

offensive practice to establish standing. Glassroth, 335 F.3d at 1293.

b. The Taxpayers Have Standing Based on Their Status as Municipal Taxpayers.

The taxpayers also have standing as municipal taxpayers to challenge the

prayers of the Planning Commission during 2003–2004. In the seminal decision

on taxpayer standing, Frothingham v. Mellon, the Supreme Court rejected, as a

general proposition, the standing of federal taxpayers to challenge federal statutes

as unconstitutional, but the Court distinguished challenges by municipal taxpayers.

262 U.S. 447, 486, 43 S. Ct. 597, 600–01 (1923). “The interest of a taxpayer of a

municipality in the application of its moneys is direct and immediate and the

remedy by injunction to prevent their misuse is not inappropriate. It is upheld by a

36
large number of state cases and is the rule of this Court.” Id.

The Supreme Court later relaxed the Frothingham standard and ruled that

federal taxpayers had standing to challenge the constitutionality of a federal

spending program under the Spending Clause if the expenditure violated a specific

constitutional limitation. Flast v. Cohen, 392 U.S. 83, 102–03, 88 S. Ct. 1942,

1953–54 (1968). The Flast exception remains narrow and limits standing by

federal taxpayers to challenges aimed at a “specific congressional appropriation”

that violates the Establishment Clause. Hein v. Freedom From Religion Found.,

Inc., 127 S. Ct. 2553, 2559, 2565–66 (2007). The district court relied on Flast to

conclude that the taxpayers had standing as municipal taxpayers, but this reliance

was misplaced. Flast pertains only to federal taxpayers and does not apply to

municipal taxpayers.

The standing of municipal taxpayers to challenge, as unconstitutional,

expenditures by local governments remains settled law. The Supreme Court

recently restated the distinction between standing of municipal taxpayers and

standing of federal or state taxpayers. “The Frothingham Court noted with

approval the standing of municipal residents to enjoin the ‘illegal use of the

moneys of a municipal corporation,’ relying on ‘the peculiar relation of the

corporate taxpayer to the corporation’ to distinguish such a case from the general

37
bar on taxpayer suits.” DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332, 349, 126 S.

Ct. 1854, 1865 (2006) (quoting Frothingham, 262 U.S. at 486–87, 43 S. Ct. at

601). The Court then rejected the Cuno plaintiffs’ attempts “to leverage the notion

of municipal taxpayer standing beyond challenges to municipal action . . . .” Id.

Municipal taxpayers have standing to challenge unconstitutional expenditures if

their interest is “direct and immediate.” Frothingham, 262 U.S. at 486, 43 S. Ct. at

601.

A municipal taxpayer has standing to challenge a violation of the

Establishment Clause by a municipality when the taxpayer is a resident who can

establish that tax expenditures were used for the offensive practice. See Doe v.

Duncanville Indep. Sch. Dist., 70 F.3d 402, 408 (5th Cir. 1995); BATS v. Cobb

County, Ga., 495 F. Supp. 2d 1311, 1317 (N.D. Ga. 2007); Harvey v. Cobb

County, Ga., 811 F. Supp. 669, 675 (N.D. Ga. 1993). Our sister circuits have also

recognized the standing of municipal taxpayers to challenge unconstitutional

expenditures and have applied similar standards. See Doe, 70 F.3d at 408; Rocks

v. City of Philadelphia, 868 F.2d 644, 648 (3d Cir. 1989); Freedom From Religion

Found., Inc. v. Zielke, 845 F.2d 1463, 1469–70 (7th Cir. 1988); Hawley v. City of

Cleveland, 773 F.2d 736, 741–42 (6th Cir. 1985); Donnelly v. Lynch, 691 F.2d

1029, 1031–32 (1st Cir. 1982), rev’d on other grounds, 465 U.S. 668, 104 S. Ct.

38
1355 (1984). That standard applies here.

The municipal taxpayers have established the “direct and immediate”

interest necessary to confer standing to challenge the constitutionality of the

prayers of the Planning Commission. The record is clear, and the parties do not

contest, that the taxpayers are residents and taxpayers of Cobb County, and the

County expended public funds to select, invite, and thank invocational speakers for

Planning Commission meetings during 2003–2004. We affirm the decision that

the taxpayers have standing.

2. The Findings of the District Court About the Prayer Practice of the Planning
Commission in 2003 and 2004 Were Not Clearly Erroneous.

The district court did not err when it ruled that the prayers of the Planning

Commission during 2003–2004 were unconstitutional because the selection

procedures violated the “impermissible motive” standard of Marsh. In Marsh, the

Court stated that the selection of a chaplain for 16 years was not a violation of the

Establishment Clause “[a]bsent proof that the chaplain’s reappointment stemmed

from an impermissible motive . . . .” 463 U.S. at 793, 103 S. Ct. at 3337. The

district court interpreted this language to prohibit the selection of a speaker based

on the speaker’s beliefs:

[T]he “impermissible motive” prohibition seems directed at the
conscious selection of a speaker from one denomination or sect for the
purpose of promoting or endorsing the beliefs held by that speaker.

39
 That is, the Court appeared to deem constitutionally unacceptable the
selection and retention of a particular speaker because of that
speaker’s sectarian affiliation or religious beliefs.

Pelphrey v. Cobb County, Ga., 410 F. Supp. 2d 1324, 1336 (N.D. Ga. 2006).

The County argues that the district court erred in its application of the

“impermissible motive” standard because it converts an “inquiry into ‘motive’ into

a mandate that government treat all potential prayer-givers equally.” We disagree.

The district court faulted the Planning Commission for excluding certain faiths

because of their beliefs. Marsh upheld the selection and tenure of the chaplain in

the absence of evidence that his selection was based on his particular beliefs. 463

U.S. at 793–94, 103 S. Ct. at 3337. The “impermissible motive” standard does not

require that all faiths be allowed the opportunity to pray. The standard instead

prohibits purposeful discrimination. The district court recognized this distinction

and applied the correct standard.

The County suggests that the selection process is immaterial when the

content of the prayer is constitutional, but we again disagree. The central concern

of Marsh is whether the prayers have been exploited to create an affiliation

between the government and a particular belief or faith. See Marsh, 463 U.S. at

794–95, 103 S. Ct. at 3337–38; Allegheny, 492 U.S. at 603, 109 S. Ct. at 3106.

The Marsh Court weighed all of the factors that comprised the practice, including

40
the nature of the prayers, the identity of the speaker, and the selection of the clergy.

Marsh, 463 U.S. at 793–95, 103 S. Ct. at 3336–38. The district court correctly

considered the selection process as a relevant factor.

The record supports the finding that Richardson “categorically excluded”

certain faiths from the list of potential invocational speakers for meetings of the

Planning Commission. The phone book used by Richardson to compile the list of

potential speakers for 2003–2004 had a long and continuous line through certain

categories of faiths, including “Churches-Islamic,” “Churches-Jehovah’s

Witnesses,” “Churches-Jewish,” and “Churches-Latter Day Saints.” The line that

crossed through these religious categories was similar to the line drawn through

other categories, such as “Chiropractors” and “Circuit Board Assembly Repairs,”

and there were no invocational speakers from these faiths at Planning Commission

meetings in 2003 and 2004. The record supports the finding that Richardson

categorically excluded certain faiths. The district court did not clearly err when it

found that the Planning Commission categorically excluded specific faiths based

on their beliefs, and we agree with the district court that the categorical exclusion

of certain faiths based on their beliefs is unconstitutional.

3. The District Court Did Not Err When It Awarded Nominal Damages To
Remedy the Constitutional Violations.

The district court did not err in its award of nominal damages. “Nominal

41
damages are appropriate if a plaintiff establishes a violation of a fundamental

constitutional right, even if he cannot prove actual injury sufficient to entitle him to

compensatory damages.” Hughes v. Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1162 (11th Cir. 2003).

This Court has found that “nominal damages are similarly appropriate in the

context of a First Amendment violation.” KH Outdoor, L.L.C. v. Trussville, City

of, 465 F.3d 1256, 1261 (11th Cir. 2006). Because the taxpayers proved a

constitutional violation, they are entitled to nominal damages.

IV. CONCLUSION

The judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

MIDDLEBROOKS, District Judge, Dissenting:

I.

42
 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that he was not “troubled by the

question where to draw the line. That is the question in pretty much everything

worth arguing in the law.” Irwin v. Gavit, 268 U.S. 161, 167, 45 S.Ct. 475, 476

(1925). Our Establishment Clause jurisprudence is “of necessity one of

line-drawing, of determining at what point a dissenter's rights of religious freedom

are infringed by the State.” Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 598, 112 S.Ct. 2649,

2661 (1992). While I agree with much of the majority opinion, particularly with

respect to the danger of the federal judiciary embarking on the editing of prayer, I

disagree that Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783,103 S.Ct. 3330 (1983) should be

read so broadly as to authorize prayer at virtually every government meeting.

Marsh has been viewed as an exception to the rule, justified only by a specific

history. In this case, the majority allows the exception to swallow the rule. I

respectfully dissent.

II.

Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct. 2105 (1971) governs modern

Establishment Clause jurisprudence, subjecting both laws and government

practices to a three-part test to determine whether they are constitutional. See

McCreary County, Ky. v. ACLU of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722 (2005);

Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F.3d 1282 (11th Cir. 2003). For a law or practice to be

43
deemed constitutional, “[f]irst, the statute must have a secular legislative purpose;

second, its principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor

inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not foster ‘an excessive government

entanglement with religion.’” Lemon, 403 U.S. at 612-13, 91 S.Ct. at 211 (internal

citations omitted).

The prayer solicited and sponsored by the Cobb County commissions

violates all three prongs of the Lemon test. It would be incredulous to argue any

purpose other than a religious one for “invoking divine guidance” upon the

commissions, and the parties do not allege any other purpose. It is equally

axiomatic that the primary effect of the prayers is to advance religion. See Marsh,

463 U.S. at 797, 103 S.Ct. at 3339. The practice of praying at the commissions’

sessions also constitutes excessive entanglement between the State and religion.

Cobb County staff are charged with inviting local religious leaders to deliver the

prayers, and as the District Court and the majority have affirmed, such a practice

has been conducted in a discriminatory, unconstitutional way.

In concluding the Lemon opinion, Chief Justice Burger wrote for the

majority: “[t]he Constitution decrees that religion must be a private matter for the

individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice, and that while some

involvement and entanglement are inevitable, lines must be drawn.” Lemon, 403

44
U.S. at 625, 91 S.Ct. at 2117. Twelve years later, Chief Justice Burger found some

involvement and entanglement justified. In Marsh, a Nebraska legislator

challenged the Nebraska Legislature’s practice of beginning each of its sessions

with a prayer offered by a chaplain chosen and employed by the state. Rather than

apply the Lemon test to the practice, the Supreme Court instead looked to the

history of Congressional prayer. Based on the discrete, historical fact that the same

Congress that authorized the Bill of Rights also authorized legislative prayer before

Congress, the Court found the practice constitutional.1 As Chief Justice Burger

wrote for the majority:

On Sept. 25, 1789, three days after Congress authorized the appointment of
paid chaplains, final agreement was reached on the language of the Bill of
Rights. Clearly the men who wrote the First Amendment Religion Clause
did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of
that Amendment, for the practice of opening sessions with prayer has
continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress. It
has also been followed consistently in most of the states, including
Nebraska, where the institution of opening legislative sessions with prayer
was adopted even before the State attained statehood.

Marsh, 463 U.S. at 788-790, 103 S.Ct. at 3334-35 (internal citations omitted).

Explaining that historical patterns, standing alone, “cannot justify contemporary

1
Michael W. McConnell also has commented on the singular reasoning behind the Marsh
decision, stating: “The interesting thing about the opinion is that it is based squarely and
exclusively on the historical fact that the framers of the first amendment did not believe
legislative chaplains to violate the establishment clause.” Michael W. McConnell, On Reading
the Constitution, 73 CORNELL L. REV . 359, 362 (1988).

45
violations of constitutional guarantees,” the Marsh Court reasoned that historical

evidence “sheds light not only on what the draftsmen intended the Establishment

Clause to mean, but also on how they thought that Clause applied to the practice

authorized by the First Congress - their actions reveal their intent.” Id. at 790, 103

S.Ct. at 3335. Thus, Marsh did not evolve from the Supreme Court’s modern

history of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, but instead, arose out of a “unique”

historical fact.2 See Marsh, 463 U.S. at 790, 103 S.Ct. at 3335.

The Supreme Court has never expanded the Marsh exception. Rather, the

Supreme Court consistently has applied the Lemon test in subsequent

Establishment Clause cases, including a case in which various religious leaders

were invited to give invocations at public school graduations. In Lee v. Weisman,

505 U.S. 577, 112 S.Ct. 2649 (1992), petitioners challenged Providence, Rhode

Island’s practice of inviting members of the clergy to give “nonsectarian”

invocations and benedictions at the public schools’ graduation ceremonies.

Applying the Lemon test - and distinguishing Marsh as a narrow decision limited

to its unique history - the District Court and the Court of Appeals both ruled the

2
Justice Brennan wrote for the majority in Edwards v. Aguillard, “[t]he Lemon test has
been applied in all cases since its adoption in 1971, except in Marsh v. Chambers, where the
Court held that the Nebraska Legislature's practice of opening a session with a prayer by a
chaplain paid by the State did not violate the Establishment Clause. The Court based its
conclusion in that case on the historical acceptance of the practice.” Edwards v. Aguillard, 482
U.S. 578, 583, 107 S.Ct. 2573, 2577 (1987)(citations omitted).

46
practice was unconstitutional. See 505 U.S. at 584-85, 112 S.Ct. at 2653. The

Supreme Court affirmed, declining the Government’s invitation to extend the

Marsh exception. Rejecting the argument that state-sponsored prayer comports

with the Establishment Clause so long as it is “nonsectarian” and thus advances

some sort of “civic religion,” the Court explained that the Founders’ separation of

government from religion was intended to protect the integrity of both. Writing for

the majority, Justice Kennedy reminded us:

The First Amendment’s Religion Clauses mean that religious beliefs and
religious expression are too precious to be either proscribed or prescribed by
the State. The design of the Constitution is that preservation and
transmission of religious beliefs and worship is a responsibility and a choice
committed to the private sphere, which itself is promised freedom to pursue
that mission. It must not be forgotten then, that while concern must be given
to define the protection granted to an objector or a dissenting nonbeliever,
the same Clauses exist to protect religion from government interference.

Id. at 589, 112 S.Ct. at 2656.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Blackmun observed that “[s]ince 1971, the

Court has decided 31 Establishment Clause cases. Observing that whether

participation in state-sponsored religious exercises was voluntary or coerced was

immaterial to the constitutional analysis, Justice Blackmun added:

We have believed that religious freedom cannot exist in the absence of a free
democratic government, and that such a government cannot endure when
there is fusion between religion and the political regime. We have believed
that religious freedom cannot thrive in the absence of a vibrant religious
community and that such a community cannot prosper when it is bound to

47
 the secular. And we have believed that these were the animating principles
behind the adoption of the Establishment Clause. To that end, our cases have
prohibited government endorsement of religion, its sponsorship, and active
involvement in religion, whether or not citizens were coerced to conform.

Id. at 608, 112 S.Ct. at 2667.

Justice Blackmun warned, “[w]hen the government arrogates to itself a role in

religious affairs, it abandons its obligation as guarantor of democracy.”

In the more than 15 years since the Lee decision, neither the Supreme Court

nor this Court has expanded the Marsh exception to include other government

prayers. See, e.g. Bunting v. Mellen, 541 U.S. 1019, 124 S.Ct. 1750 (2004)

(denying cert. from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which determined that an

invocation of God during Virginia Military Institute’s Supper Roll Call ceremony

is unconstitutional); Santa Fe Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290, 120 S.Ct.

2266 (2000) (holding that, despite the District's long-established tradition of

sanctioning student-led prayer at varsity football games, the policy of favoring a

student led “invocation” at football games violates the Establishment Clause);

Jager v. Douglas County Sch. Dist., 862 F.2d 824 (11th Cir. 1989) (declining to

use Marsh and holding that the Lemon test was the appropriate test in assessing the

constitutionality of invocations delivered prior to public high school games

because the practice had an essentially religious purpose, and had the primary

effect of advancing religion, and therefore violated the Establishment Clause).

48
 Recently, in Glassroth, the Chief Justice of Alabama installed a Ten

Commandments monument in the central rotunda of the Alabama State Judicial

Building. Finding no “unambiguous and unbroken history” of displaying religious

symbols in judicial buildings, we declined to extend the Marsh exception to allow

the monument. We also found that broadening the Marsh exception to other

practices would be inconsistent with Establishment Clause jurisprudence,

observing:

The Supreme Court has warned that a broad reading of Marsh would gut the
core of the Establishment Clause and has stated that Marsh plainly does not
stand for the sweeping proposition ... that all accepted practices 200 years
old and their equivalents are constitutional today.”

Glassroth, 335 F.3d at 1297 (internal citations and quotations omitted). With vivid

and evocative imagery, Judge Carnes, writing for the Court, rejected the Chief

Justice’s argument that, consistent with the Establishment Clause, the Government

“may promote religion so long as it does not command or prohibit conduct.” Id. at

1294. As Judge Carnes wrote:

[I]f we adopted [the Chief Justice’s] position . . . Every government building
could be topped with a cross, or a menorah, or a statue of Buddha,
depending upon the views of the officials with authority over the premises.
A crèche could occupy the place of honor in the lobby or rotunda of every
municipal, county, state, and federal building. Proselytizing religious
messages could be played over the public address system in every
government building at the whim of the official in charge of the premises.

Id. at 1294.

49
On this matter of first impression, the majority has expanded the Marsh exception

to allow prayer at the Cobb County Planning Commission and the Cobb County

Commission. This expansion will allow a chorus of government prayers to

resound from every “deliberative body” of every locality whose duty it is to

address the secular affairs of its constituents. If the Establishment Clause prohibits

a religious monument from occupying the lobby of a County building, it defies

logic to conclude that the Clause nevertheless sanctions state-sponsored prayer at

public meetings upstairs.

The majority cites to the plurality opinion, Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S.

677, 125 S. Ct. 2854, 2865 (2005), in which the Supreme Court deviated

somewhat from Lemon in allowing a monument with the Ten Commandments to

remain on the Texas state capitol grounds. But see Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S.

668, 104 S.Ct. 1355 (1984) (applying Lemon in allowing the display of a nativity

scene). Although Chief Justice Rehnquist, joined by Justice Scalia, Justice

Kennedy, and Justice Thomas, wrote that the Lemon test is “not useful in dealing

with the sort of passive monument,” he still relied, in part, on the purpose prong of

the Lemon test. In delivering his opinion, Justice Rehnquist affirmed that there

was a “valid secular purpose” to the monument: “recognizing and commending

the [monument’s sponsors] for their efforts to reduce juvenile delinquency.” Van

50
Orden, 545 U.S. at 686, 682, 125 S.Ct. 2854, 2856, 2858. In addition, concurring

in the judgment, Justice Bryer suggested that an evaluation under Lemon might

lead to the same result. 545 U.S. at 700, 125 S.Ct. 2854, 2869.

Thus, the Supreme Court’s ad hoc approach to the display of religious

symbols “has come to ‘requir[e] scrutiny more commonly associated with interior

decorators than with the judiciary.’” Lee, 505 U.S. at 636, 112 S.Ct. 2649, 2681

(Scalia, J. dissenting). This approach might do for the quiescent display of

religious monuments and holiday decorations, however; a more rigorous and

consistently applied evaluation is required, and has been applied, when the state

assumes the active exercise of public prayer.

III.

I would draw the line at state-sponsored prayer at invocations before the

United States Congress and the state legislatures. Marsh is an outlier in

Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Therefore, the utmost restraint should be

used in expanding its holding to sanction more state-sponsored prayers. As this

Court has stated, “[i]n refusing to declare Nebraska’s legislative invocation

unconstitutional, the Court relied on the ‘unique history’ associated with the

practice of opening legislative sessions with a prayer.” Jager, 862 F.2d at 828.3

3
In enumerating the constitutional practices that intermingle religion with state activity,
Chief Justice Rehnquist did not include prayers in local government meetings, identifying only

51
 The two Cobb County commissions do not have the “unambiguous and

unbroken history of more than 220 years” of prayer central to the holding in

Marsh, nor do they have a “practice of over a century” of invocation prayers as

did the Nebraska legislature. Prayers offered at the two Cobb County commissions

are not so ancient a practice:4 the Cobb County Board of Commissioners was

founded in 1964,5 and the Cobb County Planning Commission was founded in

1956.6 Prayers at the meetings of the commissions hardly can be considered part

of the fabric of this nation’s history.

County commissions, such as that of Cobb County, also differ

fundamentally from state legislative bodies.7 Under Georgia law, the Cobb County

Commission is at best quasi-legislative. It performs executive as well as

legislative functions, most notably the administration of certain rules and

the Congress and state legislatures. See Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 688, 670, 104 S.Ct. 1355,
1357 (1984) (“To forbid the use of this one passive symbol while hymns and carols are sung and
played in public places including schools, and while Congress and state legislatures open public
sessions with prayers, would be an overreaction contrary to our history and our holdings.”)
4
The transcripts in evidence cover the period from January 1995 to May 2006. [Red Br.
4].
5
1964 Ga.L. 2075.
6
1956 Ga.L. 2006, amended by 1964 Ga.L. 814, 1974 Ga.L. 3872.
7
In determining the particular functions of a governmental body or official, we must refer
to the state law definitions of that entity's functions. See Turquitt v. Jefferson County, 137 F.3d
1285, 1287 (11th Cir.1998) (en banc); Marsh v. Butler County, 225 F.3d 1243 (11th Cir. 2000).

52
regulations as applied to an individual, entity, or group. While the Georgia

Constitution provides for separation of powers between the three branches of

government: legislative, judicial and executive, see G A. C ONST. art. 1, § 11

(2008), the doctrine of separation of powers applies only to the state and not to

municipalities or to county governments. See Bldg. Auth. of Fulton County v.

Georgia, 321 S.E.2d 97 (Ga. 1984).8 County commissions’ powers are strictly

limited by law, and if there is reasonable doubt as to the existence of a particular

power, the doubt is resolved in the negative. See Mobley v. Polk County, 251

S.E.2d 538 (Ga. 1979).9

A review of recent minutes from County Commission meetings shows that

the Commission performs the executive (administrative) and adjudicative

functions expected of municipal government. For example, on January 8, 2008,

the Cobb County Board of Commissioners recognized the Murdock Elementary

School for being named as a 2008 Georgia School of Excellence by the Georgia

Department of Education. In that same meeting, the Board: approved construction

contracts; accepted a $1,125.00 donation from Wal-Mart; decided to “suspend for

8
This Court has sharply divided over whether Georgia county commissioners are entitled
to the same Eleventh Amendment immunity that is enjoyed by the state legislature. See Manders
v. Lee, 338 F.3d 1304 (11th Cir. 2003) (Anderson, J., dissenting, joined by Wilson, J.).
9
In determining the particular functions of a governmental body or official, we refer to
the state law definitions of that entity’s functions. See Turquitt v. Jefferson County, 137 F.3d
1285, 1287 (11th Cir. 1998) (en banc); Marsh v. Butler County, 225 F.3d 1243 (11th Cir. 2000).

53
seven (7) days, the Cobb County liquor, beer and wine pouring licenses for

Pappa’s Restaurant, Inc”; and approved “the appointment of Mr. Michael Petelle

to the Keep Cobb Beautiful Board.” The County Commission also dealt with

county personnel decisions, approving “the reclassification of an existing

Maintenance Worker II position, grade 40, to an Administrative Specialist I

position, grade 41, and further authorize [sic] the conversion of an existing

part-time Administrative Aide position to a part-time Maintenance Tech position.”

I acknowledge that there is dicta within Marsh that can be used to support

the majority’s expansive view of Legislative Prayer, including a reference to

“other deliberative bodies.” Marsh, 463 U.S. at 786, 103 S.Ct. at 3333. But that is

not the holding of the case, and it is untethered from Marsh’s historical

justification. Marsh should be viewed as an exception, not as establishing a

principle of law that can be extended beyond its reach.10 If Marsh is read broadly,

separation of church and state as it now exists becomes relegated only to the

10
For example, do “deliberative bodies” include the courts in this circuit? On August 15,
2008, the Associated Press reported that an Alabama judge, who once wore a judicial robe
embroidered with the Ten Commandments, ordered a group appearing before him to hold hands
and pray. See also N.C. Civil Liberties Union Legal Found. v. Constangy, 947 F.2d 1145 (4th
Cir. 1991) (rejecting a judge’s argument that opening court with prayer fell within the Marsh
legislative exemption as a “deliberative body,” and holding the practice unconstitutional under
the Lemon test).

54
schools.11

Describing it as producing an absurd result, the majority credits me with

reasoning which is actually the opposite of my view. I do not argue that

government prayer by the Boston City Council should be tolerated because it was

established in 1822. After all, the Massachusetts Constitution at that time, largely

written by John and Samuel Adams, established a state religion financed by tax

payers, authorized mandatory church attendance and the imposition of criminal

sanctions for blasphemy, and discriminated against Catholics. Steven Waldman,

Founding Faith 110-111(New York, Random House, 2008); Leonard W. Levy

The Law of the Commonwealth and Chief Justice Shaw 39, 52 - 53 (New York,

Oxford University Press, 1957). Most would agree that such practices are

unconstitutional today. Marsh’s parameters are not based upon vintage alone, but

also do not establish a principle susceptible to general application. In my view,

prayer is authorized in the Alaska state legislature but not in the Boston City

Council. I concede this is an imperfect result, but, consistent with Marsh, it

maintains separation of church and state.

If we apply the legislative prayer exception beyond the Congress or state

11
The Sixth Circuit has refused to permit state-sponsored prayer at meetings of school
boards despite arguments based upon Marsh. See Coles ex rel. Coles v. Cleveland Bd. of Educ.,
171 F.3d 369, 380 (6th Cir. 1999)(“Marsh does not support the proposition that
government-sponsored prayer at all “deliberative public bodies” is presumptively valid.”).

55
legislatures considered in Marsh, not only does the historical justification

disappear, but the entanglement with religion becomes more problematic. As the

Supreme Court noted in Lee, “[o]ne timeless lesson is that if citizens are subjected

to state-sponsored religious exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard

and respect that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark of a

free people.” 505 U.S. at 592, 112 S.Ct. at 2658.

In Lee, Justice Kennedy pointed out that the atmosphere at the opening of a

session of a state legislature allows people to enter and leave with little comment

and for a number of reasons. Id. at 596, 112 S.Ct. at 2660. Contrast that with a

county commission acting in a quasi-adjudicative role, deciding whether to

terminate an employee, suspend a liquor license, or grant a zoning variance. A

citizen seeking relief has little choice but to attend, and has no role in the choice of

prayer. It is fundamentally illogical for our Establishment Clause jurisprudence to

forbid cadets from hearing grace before a meal at VMI, yet require members of

the public who attend zoning meetings in Cobb County, Georgia, to hear a prayer

asking for guidance - from a deity which may not be their own - on the decision

over a parking lot variance.12

12
The Cobb County Planning Commission is even further removed from Marsh. It is not a
legislative body because it has no rule making or decision making authority. The only action the
Planning Commission can take is to recommend zoning and land use regulations. See Section
134-65, Cobb County Code. Section 134-65 names some “additional powers” of the Planning

56
 Yet what is the purpose of the state-sponsored prayer? The commissioners’

“finger-through-the-Yellow-Pages” selection procedure belies the notion that the

commissioners are seeking guidance from their deity, since it is possible, indeed

likely, that no member will share the faith of the person offering the prayers.

Is it then to show a general approval of religion? If so, the Supreme Court

has repeatedly condemned governmental preference for religion over non-religion.

See Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1, 17, 28, 109 S.Ct. 890 (1989);

Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104, 189 S.Ct. 266 (1968)(“The First

Amendment mandates governmental neutrality between . . . religion and

nonreligion”).

The Establishment Clause also does not authorize the promotion of religion,

so long as a “diversity” of religious views are represented. As Justice Souter,

joined by Justice Stevens and Justice O’Connor presciently warned in Lee, “that

position would necessarily compel the government and, inevitably the courts, to

make wholly inappropriate judgments about the number of religions the State

should sponsor and the relative frequency with which it should sponsor each.”

Lee, 505 U.S. at 617, 112 S.Ct. at 2671. The majority comes close to suggesting

this justification by giving great emphasis to the “diversity” of the prayer givers,

Commission, namely that “[i]t may recommend . . . programs for public improvements and
financing thereof.”

57
some of whom came from “the Jewish, Unitarian, and Muslim faiths.”

Is this state-sponsored prayer even really prayer? Is it the prayer that we

would expect to hear in a church, synagogue or mosque? Or is it watered-down,

politically correct prayer? Do references to a deity become largely “laconic,” as

Judge Story described the majority of references to Christ occurring in the Cobb

County Commissions? See Pelphrey v. Cobb County, Ga., 410 F.Supp.2d 1324,

1327 (N.D. Ga. 2006) (“the more elaborate or repetitive Christian references were

unusual, and were contained in only a minority of the prayers”).

I concur with the majority that judges, as representatives of the government,

have no business editing or evaluating the content of prayer. However, I also

believe that sponsorship of prayer by these commissions presents a similar,

although less direct, danger. When state sponsored prayer is a perfunctory and

sterile exercise marking the beginning of a commission agenda, religion becomes

the casualty.

The unique historical fact that was the keystone of Marsh’s holding was

that the very men who voted to include the Bill of Rights in the Constitution, three

days later voted for the appointment of a chaplain to lead Congress in prayer. The

Court wrote that the “historical evidence sheds light not only on what the

draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but also on how they

58
thought that Clause applied to the practice authorized by the First Congress - their

actions reveal their intent.” Marsh, 463 U.S. at 790, 103 S.Ct. at 3335. Based on

the principle that “[a]n act passed by the first Congress assembled under the

Constitution, many of whose members had taken part in framing that instrument”

... “is contemporaneous and weighty evidence of its true meaning,” the Marsh

court determined that congressional prayer is constitutional. Id. (internal citations

omitted). It extended that determination to the Nebraska state legislature, an

unquestionably legislative body, one that had a “practice of over a century” of

prayer. Id.

Justice Brennan’s dissent in Marsh, along with other historical scholarship,

chronicles the divisions among the drafters of the Establishment Clause over the

First Congress’ appointment of the chaplain, including James Madison’s strident

disapproval. The Marsh majority, however, simply looked to the historical

chronology to infer the intent of the drafters, and that interpretation is compelling.

There is no such compelling history in this case. To divine the intent of the

drafters of the Establishment Clause as applied to the Cobb County Commissions

or other local government meetings requires too many inferences upon inferences

to justify such a radical departure from Lemon and its progeny. Historians may

speculate on how James Madison and his contemporaries would regard prayer

59
before the Cobb County Planning Commission and the Cobb County Commission,

but I do not find such an evaluation useful.

IV.

As there was at the drafting of the Establishment Clause, there are those

today who desire the State use its power to buttress their own faiths.13 And, as

there was in the eighteenth century, today there are government officials who

would oblige them, who would use their positions, and even the municipal

buildings that house them, to deliver religious messages and prayers while

carrying out the secular duties of their offices. See Glassroth v. Moore, 335 F.3d

1282 (11th Cir. 2003). But the doctrine of “separation and neutrality” leaves no

place “for the machinery of the State to affirm their beliefs.” Lee, 505 U.S. at 629,

112 S.Ct. at 2677.14 The“separation” does not simply drive expressions of faith to

13
See also County of Allegheny v. ACLU of Greater Pittsburgh, 492 U.S. 573, 611, 109
S.Ct. at 3110 (1989)(“To be sure, in a pluralistic society there may be some would-be theocrats,
who wish that their religion were an established creed, and some of them perhaps may be even
audacious enough to claim that the lack of established religion discriminates against their
preferences. But this claim gets no relief, for it contradicts the fundamental premise of the
Establishment Clause itself. the antidiscrimination principle inherent in the Establishment Clause
necessarily means that would-be discriminators on the basis or religion cannot prevail.”)
(Kennedy, J., concurring in part, dissenting in part).
14
In a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
“Believing with you that religion is matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he
owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government
reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the
whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of
separation between church and state.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist

60
the periphery of public life, but instead provides a bulwark for Americans’ faith

from the dulling and often corrupting influence of government.15 At the same

time, the “neutrality” of government in a pluralistic society provides equal

opportunity and freedom for those of different faiths and different denominations

to flourish and practice their beliefs. See Marsh, 463 U.S. at 803, 103 S.Ct. at

3342. As Justice Brennan explained in his dissent in Marsh, the Establishment

Clause:

prevent[s] the trivialization and degradation of religion by too close an
attachment to the organs of government. The Establishment Clause stands
as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution
that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy to permit its unhallowed
perversion by a civil magistrate.

Id. (internal citations and quotations omitted).

Adoption of the Establishment Clause was a break from ecclesiastic rule,16

and the commencement of the separate spheres of religion and government so as

to preserve the integrity of both. The hazards that result from ecclesiastic rule,

Ass’n (Jan 1, 1801) in 8 WRITING OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 113 (H. Washington ed., 1861). But
see Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38, 92 (1985) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting) (calling the wall of
separation a “misleading metaphor”).
15
“[E]xperience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the
purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation.” Lee, 505 U.S. at 590, 112 S.Ct.
at 2657 (quoting Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), in 8
PAPERS OF JAMES MADISON 301 (W. Rachal, R., et. al. eds., 1973)).
16
“[A]s late as the time of the Revolutionary war, there were established churches in at
least eight of the thirteen former colonies and established religions in at least four of the other
five. Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 428, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 1265 (1962).

61
both for religion and for government, were perceived by the drafters. Those

hazards can be observed today in places where the distinctions between religious

and secular laws are blurred, where dissent is not tolerated, and where faith

becomes a weapon to be wielded by those who seek power. In this country, pious

politicians who compete for support through public professions of their own

rectitude and devotion take a step toward those hazards, and religion becomes less

meaningful through the hollow prayers spoken with the dual purpose of seeking a

divine audience and appealing to a secular one.

V.

As Chief Justice Burger wrote, “[t]he Constitution decrees that religion

must be a private matter . . . and while some involvement and entanglement are

inevitable, lines must be drawn.” Lemon, 403 U.S. at 625, 91 S.Ct. at 2117. I

would draw the line at state-sponsored prayer at invocations before the United

States Congress and State legislatures. I therefore dissent.

62