On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, the Town of Greece has adopted a new policy for pre-board meeting prayers.  The new policy states in part that “It is the intent of the Town Board to allow a private citizen to solemnize the proceedings of the Town Board.  It is the policy of the Town Board to allow for an invocation, which may include a prayer, a reflective moment of silence, or a short solemnizing message, to be offered before its meetings for the benefit of the Town Board to accommodate the spiritual needs of the public officials.”

The new policy (available here) already has its critics.  The Center for Inquiry (CFI), a nonprofit organization whose mission it is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values, says that the Town’s new policy appears to limit those who may give prayers to members of “religious assemblies.”  According to CFI, the Town has established an “assemblies list” of individuals it may select to give pre-board meeting religious prayers, but only allows leaders of religious assemblies to be included in the list, and excludes leaders of secular groups.  The new policy states: “The Assemblies list shall be compiled using reasonable efforts, including research from the Internet, to identify all ‘churches,’ ‘synagogues,’ ‘congregations,’ ‘temples,’ ‘mosques,’ or other religious assemblies in the Town of Greece.  All religious assemblies with an established presence in the Town of Greece are eligible to be included in the Assemblies List, and any such religious assembly can confirm its inclusion by specific written request to the Clerk.”  This controversy, however, comes in the wake of the Town opening its July 2014 board meeting with a secular invocation delivered by an atheist (prior post here).  To read more about the CFI’s concerns, click here.

We have also been tracking how local governments have responded to the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece.  Here are some recent highlights.

–In response to allegations of discrimination by the Escambia County Board of County Commissioners (Pensacola, Florida), one board member states:

When you come to bring your Wiccan, Atheist, or Klingon invocation — I’ll politely excuse myself from the room and simultaneously invite anyone in the audience who wants to join me in a Christian invocation out back. You can give your invocation to those that want to hear it and stay in the room. Nobody will prevent you from your free exercise of your religion, just as I would expect for you not to attempt to block me from exercising my constitutional right to my Christian belief via a Christian invocation outside the back door.

  More on this story here.

–An atheist quotes from “Harry Potter” when giving a secular invocation at a Sioux Falls City Council meeting in South Dakota.  Read more here.

–A councilman in Concord, California says he would refuse to allow Satanists to give pre-council meeting prayer because “Satan is the devil.”  The Contra Costa Times reports.

–The Brevard County Board of Commissioners in Florida has voted to ban atheists from giving religious invocations before local meetings.  More on this story here.

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.

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Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.

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