(September 17, 1907–June 25, 1995), was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1969–86. He had served on the faculty of William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, 1931–48; assistant U.S. Attorney General, 1953–56; and judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, 1956–69. He delivered the court’s opinion in the case of Marsh v. Chambers, 675 F. 2d 228, 233 (8th Cir. 1982); review allowed, 463 U.S. 783 (1982), regarding chaplains opening Legislative sessions with prayer:
The men who wrote the First Amendment religion clause did not view paid legislative chaplains and opening prayers as a violation of that amendment … the practice of opening sessions with prayer has continued without interruption ever since that early session of Congress.3554
It can hardly be thought that in the same week the members of the first Congress voted to appoint and pay a chaplain for each House and also voted to approved the draft of the First Amendment … (that) they intended to forbid what they had just declared acceptable.3555
[Prayer and Chaplains] are deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.3556
The legislature by majority vote invites a clergyman to give a prayer, neither the inviting nor the giving nor the hearing of the prayer is making a law. On this basis alone … the sayings of prayers, per se, in the legislative halls at the opening session in not prohibited by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.3557
The case of Bogen v. Doty … involved a county board’s practice of opening each of its public meetings with a prayer offered by a local member of the clergy. … This Court upheld that practice, finding that it advanced a clearly secular purpose of establishing a solemn atmosphere and serious tone for the board meetings. … Establishing solemnity is the primary effect of all invocations at gatherings of persons with differing views on religion.3558
In a 1985 opinion of Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668, 673 (1985), Chief Justice Warren Burger upheld that the city of Pawtucket, R.I., did not violate the Constitution by displaying a Nativity scene. Noting that presidential orders and proclamations from Congress have designated Christmas as a national holiday in religious terms since 1789, he wrote:
The city of Pawtucket, R.I., annually erects a Christmas display in a park. … The creche display is sponsored by the city to celebrate the Holiday recognized by Congress and national tradition and to depict the origins of that Holiday; these are legitimate secular purposes. … The creche … is no more an advancement or endorsement of religion than the congressional and executive recognition of the origins of Christmas. …
It would be ironic if … the creche in the display, as part of a celebration of an event acknowledged in the Western World for 20 centuries, and in this country by the people, the Executive Branch, Congress, and the courts for 2 centuries, would so ‘taint’ the exhibition as to render it violative of the Establishment Clause. To forbid the use of this one passive symbol … would be an overreaction contrary to this Nation’s history.3559
There is an unbroken history of official acknowledgement by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life. … The Constitution does not require a complete separation of church and state. It affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions and forbids hostility towards any. …
Anything less would require the “callous indifference” we have said was never intended by the Establishment Clause. Indeed, we have observed, such hostility would bring us into a “war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment’s guaranty of the free exercise of religion.”3560
On May 23, 1971, in the Los Angeles 2Chief Justice Warren Burger stated;
I am developing a deep conviction as to the necessity for civility if we are to keep the jungle from closing in on us and taking over all that the hand and brain of man has created in thousands of years. … Without civility no private discussion, no public debate, no legislative process, no political campaign, no trial of any case, can serve its purpose or achieve its objective. When men shout and shriek or call names, we witness the end of rational thought process if not the beginning of blows and combat. I hardly dare take the risk of adding that this may also be relevant to the news media.3561