United States Supreme Court (1982) in the case of Chambers v. Marsh, 675 F. 2d 228, 233 (8th Cir. 1982); review allowed, 463 U.S. 783 (1982), Chief Justice Warren E. Burger delivered the Court's opinion:
<The legislature by majority vote invites a clergyman to give a prayer, neither the inviting nor the giving nor the hearing of the prayer is making a law. On this basis alone...the sayings of prayers, per se, in the legislative halls at the opening session in not prohibited by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The case of Bogen v. Doty...involved a county board's practice of opening each of its public meetings with a prayer offered by a local member of the clergy....This Court upheld that practice, finding that it advanced a clearly secular purpose of establishing a solemn atmosphere and serious tone for the board meetings....Establishing solemnity is the primary effect of all invocations at gatherings of persons with differing views on religion.
The men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment....the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress.
It can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of the first Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approve the draft of the First Amendment...(that) they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable.
[Prayer and Chaplains] are deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.> 1982US001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
1982US001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). United States Supreme Court, 1982, Chambers v. Marsh, 675 F.2d 228, 233 (8th Cir. 1982); review allowed, 463 U.S. 783 (1982), Chief Justice Warren Earl Burger. "Our Christian Heritage," Letter from Plymouth Rock (Marlborough, NH: The Plymouth Rock Foundation), p. 7. Tracy Everbach, Dallas Morning News, March 16, 1993, pp. 1A, 8A.