Arrogant and Uninformed for City of Glen Rose Joe Boles to do christian prayer at meeting -Town Council room is not a church

I have written about this type of thing before. There is certainly nothing wrong with having a private prayer, or, since SCOTUS has not ruled on this yet, having elected officials from the dais offer prayers which are DIRECTED TO THE OTHER elected officials. But it is absolutely wrong for an elected official to do a prayer directed at the audience and instructing the audience what to do. See Somervell County Sinners Court for the right way to do this. ( I still believe that a prayer is completely unnecessary for what should be a secular govt meeting; the Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of having elected offficials do prayers rather than, say, inviting others, which do not have to be religious folk, from saying a prayer.

Boles says “If you’ll stand and join me in the invocation”. Wrong thing to do. From Town of Greece v Galloway, which the Supreme Court ruled on.

The principal audience for these invocations is not, indeed, the public but lawmakers themselves, who may find that a moment of prayer or quiet reflection sets the mind to a higher purpose and thereby eases the task of governing. The District Court in Marsh described the prayer exercise as “an internal act” directed at the Nebraska Legislature’s “own members,” Chambers v. Marsh, 504 F. Supp. 585, 588 (Neb. 1980), rather than an effort to promote religious observance among the public. See also Lee, 505 U. S., at 630, n. 8 (Souter, J., concurring) (describing Marsh as a case “in which government officials invoke[d] spiritual inspiration entirely for their own benefit”); Atheists of Fla., Inc. v. Lakeland, 713 F. 3d 577, 583 (CA11 2013) (quoting a city resolution providing for prayer “for the benefit and blessing of” elected leaders); Madison’s Detached Memoranda 558 (characterizing prayer in Congress as “religious worship for national representatives”); Brief for U. S. Senator Marco Rubio et al. as Amici Curiae 30–33; Brief for 12 Members of Congress as Amici Curiae 6. To be sure, many members of the public find these prayers meaningful and wish to join them. But their purpose is largely to accommodate the spiritual needs of lawmakers and connect them to a tradition dating to the time of the Framers. For members of town boards and commissions, who often serve part-time and as volunteers, ceremonial prayer may also reflect the values they hold as private citizens. The prayer is an opportunity for them to show who and what they are without denying the right to dissent by those who disagree.      The analysis would be different if town board members directed the public to participate in the prayers, singled out dissidents for opprobrium, or indicated that their decisions might be influenced by a person’s acquiescence in the prayer opportunity. No such thing occurred in the town of Greece. Although board members themselves stood, bowed their heads, or made the sign of the cross during the prayer, they at no point solicited similar gestures by the public.