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INVOCATIONS - 2-2014
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INVOCATIONS - 2-2014
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legislative prayer has coexisted with the principles of disestablishment and religious <br />freedom." Id., at 786. <br />The Supreme Court further held, "To invoke divine guidance on a public body ... <br />is not, in these circumstances, an "establishment of religion or a step toward <br />establishment, it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the <br />people of this country." ld., at 792. <br />The Supreme Court affirmed in Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), "Our <br />history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance <br />in deliberations and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary <br />leaders." Id., at 675. <br />The Supreme Court further stated, "Those government acknowledgments of <br />religion serve, in the only ways reasonably possible in our culture, the legitimate secular <br />purposes of solemnizing public occasions, expressing confidence in the future, and <br />encouraging the recognition of what is worthy of appreciation in society. For that <br />reason, and because of their history and ubiquity, those practices are not understood as <br />conveying government approval of particular religious beliefs." Id., at 693 (O'Connor, J., <br />concurring). <br />The Supreme Court also famously observed in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 <br />(1952), "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being," <br />Id., at 313-14. <br />The Supreme Court acknowledged in Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 <br />U.S. 457 (1892), that the American people have long followed a "custom of opening <br />sessions of all deliberative bodies and most conventions with prayer ...... Id., at 471. <br />The Supreme Court has determined, "The content of [such] prayer is not of <br />concern, to judges where ... there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been <br />exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief." <br />Marsh, 463 U.S. at 794-795. <br />The Supreme Court also proclaimed that it should not be the job of the courts or <br />deliberative public bodies "to embark on a sensitive evaluation or to parse the content of <br />a particular prayer" offered before a deliberative public body. Id. <br />The Supreme Court has counseled against the efforts of government officials to <br />affirmatively screen, censor, prescribe and/or proscribe the specific content of public <br />prayers offered by private speakers, as such government efforts would violate the First <br />Amendment rights of those speakers. See, e.g., Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 588- <br />589 (1992). <br />The City intends, and has intended in past practice, to adopt a policy that <br />upholds an individual's "free exercise" rights under the First Amendment. <br />M <br />
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