Is Freedom Of Religion Making Sense Fundamentally?

A very interesting ruling in the Supreme Court took place yesterday. For awhile now, religious display have been slowly taken down in various government facilities. However, the actual right to say a prayer during a government meeting has just been upheld.

A narrowly divided Supreme Court upheld decidedly Christian prayers at the start of local council meetings on Monday, declaring them in line with long national traditions though the country has grown more religiously diverse.

The content of the prayers is not significant as long as they do not denigrate non-Christians or try to win converts, the court said in a 5-4 decision backed by its conservative majority.

Though the decision split the court along ideological lines, the Obama administration backed the winning side, the town of Greece, N.Y., outside of Rochester.

The outcome relied heavily on a 1983 decision in which the court upheld an opening prayer in the Nebraska Legislature and said prayer is part of the nation's fabric, not a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion.

In her dissent, Kagan said the council meeting prayers are unlike those said to open sessions of Congress and state legislatures, where the elected officials are the intended audience. In Greece, "the prayers there are directed squarely at the citizens," she said.

Kagan also noted what she described as the meetings' intimate setting, with 10 or so people sitting in front of the town's elected and top appointed officials. Children and teenagers are likely to be present, she said.

Kennedy and his four colleagues in the majority all are Catholic. They are: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Kagan was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Of the four, three are Jewish and Sotomayor is Catholic.

Senior counsel David Cortman of the Alliance Defense Freedom, which represented the town, applauded the court for affirming "that Americans are free to pray."

No one seems to have wanted to address the issue of praying in itself, no matter what religion the prayer is from, is apart of the nation’s fabric. While a seemingly insignificant point at first glance, this actually means a lot.

Basically put, the act of praying is not only a part of the nation’s fabric, but it leaves the impression that you have to pray in some sort of fashion no matter where the prayer itself comes from. Does this mean you can make up your own prayers? Would you also have to explain what faith those self made prayer derive from as well?

Once again the simple fact that chanting any prayer is not addressed and completely disregards the secular community’s desire to put all the superstitions of religion behind society and move forward to more practical things like running a decent government.

Freedom of religion therefore implies that the act of praying is fine, but don’t you dare display any visual representation of this fact. Or is this just a way to comprise between all sides of the argument, thereby leaving a perplexing set of rules that ideologically seem to contradict one another?