Attorney Gregory Lippor Speaks on Town of Greece vs Galloway and Stephens Case

Gregory Lipper, attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State
speaks in Rochester, NY, on 6/5/13.  Mr. Lipper spoke on the case Town of Greece vs Galloway and Stephens, which will be argued in the U.S. Supreme Court later in 2013.

Mr. Lipper spoke on how this is a case about the advancement of religion by the town of Greece, NY., which is in direct violation of the 1st Amendment of the constitution of the United States, in particular the establishment clause.

Galloway and Stephens, both town of Greece residents, did not immediately file a lawsuit against the Town of Greece, but tried to handle the issue directly.  They tried to meet with the supervisor and thought they had an appointment with him, but when they went to the meeting the Supervisors underlings were there, Chief of Staff - Jeffery McCann and Constituent Services Director-Kathryn Firkins.  Where upon Galloway and Stephens were told they could just not listen to the prayer or leave.  Since the towns reponse was unsatisfactory, the two residents than solicited help from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who wrote a letter to the Town on their behalf, asking the Town to replace the Christian prayers with nondenominational ones. The Town again refused. And in response, the pastor who delivered prayer at the Board meeting in October 2007, said that those who opposed the Town's practices are “in the minority and they are ignorant of the history of our country.”   In 2008, the lawsuit aganst the Town of Greece was filed by Americans United for Separation of Church and State on behalf of litigants Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens.

Greece had not always opened its town board meetings with prayer.  Until John Auberger became Supervisor, the meetings were opened with primarily with a moment of silence.

From 1999 through 2007, every single one of the Town's monthly prayers was delivered by a Christian.  From 1999 until the time that the lawsuit was filed , over 2/3 of the prayers were explicitly Christian. No other religions were referenced in any of these prayers.  Lipper stated,  "More importantly, it became clear that the four non-Christian prayergivers in 2008 were being treated as tokens. Most of the other prayers in 2008 contained explicitly Christian content. And from the beginning of 2009 until the middle of 2010 (at which point the record for our case was closed) all of the prayer givers were Christian and 90 percent of the prayers contained Christian references—a rate of Christian references even higher than before the case."