Religion and Prayer in the Florida Legislature

[Volokh, Eugene]

        Is it really possible for a genuinely equal access policy, that
really doesn't discriminate at all among sects and among messages?  What
does the legislature do when someone from a racist church decides that this
would be a great way to cause a big stir by a prayer condemning the
non-Aryan races, the white devils, or whoever else?  Or when someone from
from a more mainstream church deciding to use this as an opportunity to use
the prayer to push his own legislative agenda, and again to create
controversy and thus stimulate publicity?

        I'm a big believer in not discriminating against private religious
speech.  Lamb's Chapel and Rosenberger, I think, are clearly right; and I
think that, for instance, letting valedictorians say whatever they want to
say, religious or not, would be quite permissible.  But I just don't think
that one *can* have a truly nondiscriminatory policy with regard to
invocations before a legislature.


Sean Gates writes:

> I agree there may be an issue of equal access for all religions, but why
> do we have to force religious speech to be non-religious (i.e.,
> non-sectarian)?  What would be wrong with a policy that allows
> representatives from any religious tradition to give a prayer, a real
> prayer, not some censored, watered-down clap-trap?
>
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