8/7/2019 Letter to Lady Lake, FL re Prayers at Meetings

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April 20, 2011

Mayor Jim RichardsCommissioners Ruth Kussard, Paul Hannan, Tony Holden, and Ty Miller

Town Attorney Derek Schroth

409 Fennell Boulevard

Lady Lake, Florida 32159

Re: Prayer at Lady Lake Town Commission Meetings

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In response to my letter to you dated March 7, 2011, the Lady Lake Town Commissionreconsidered its practice of beginning its meetings with an official public prayer. Your practice

previously had been to invite exclusively Christian clergy to deliver Christian prayers, which

resulted in the perception that Christianity was endorsed by the town as its officially preferredand promoted religion in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the

U.S. Constitution.

As the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals noted in its decision in Pelphrey v. Cobb

County, Ca., 547 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 2008) (upholding the particular legislative prayer practiceat issue in that case), the Constitution requires that a local government, if it chooses to offer an

invocation before its meetings, must invite a variety of speakers to do so to ensure that it not

advance any particular faith in violation of the Establishment Clause. The town involved inthe Pelphrey case, for example, had invited Muslim, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist speakersin addition to Christians. Having opened up the role of beginning meetings with an appropriate

solemnizing speech to private citizens, the Lady Lake Town Commission cannot discriminateagainst any citizen who would like to perform the role previously performed solely by Christian

clergy in offering an invocation on the basis of the religious views of such citizen without

violating the First Amendments guarantee of free speech rights (and Pelphrey).1

1The Lady Lake Town Commission has, by opening up a time slot at the beginning of its meetings to private

citizens (such as the Christian clergy and Jewish rabbi previously invited) to offer a short speech solemnizing the

opening of the legislative meeting, created a designated public forum for private speech. It would be a violation

of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment for the town to refuse to permit any speaker to offer an

invocation (or appropriately solemn and topical secular speech) because of the particular religious views of that

speaker. This would amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination. See e.g. Rosenberger v. Rector and

Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 828-30 (1995) and Gay Lesbian Bisexual Alliance v. Pryor, 110 F. 3d 1543,

1548 (11th

Cir. 1997). Such discrimination would also of course be a violation of the Establishment Clause under

8/7/2019 Letter to Lady Lake, FL re Prayers at Meetings

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