Court Opinion

ID: 9225911
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-28 14:42:56.091418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:12:44.763741
License: Public Domain

*2567The Sixth Circuit, also sitting en banc, recently surveyed this history and upheld a municipal prayer policy virtually identical to Rowan County's. See Bormuth v. County of Jackson, 870 F.3d 494 (2017). The Sixth Circuit acknowledged that its decision was "in conflict with the Fourth Circuit's" but found the latter "unpersuasive," id., at 509, n. 5 -not least because the Fourth Circuit "apparently did not consider the numerous examples of [legislator-led] prayers" in our Nation's history, id., at 510. Thus, the Sixth and Fourth Circuits are now split on the legality of legislator-led prayer. State and local lawmakers can lead prayers in Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan, but not in South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, or West Virginia. This Court should have stepped in to resolve this conflict.
I respectfully dissent.