In the town of Greece, New York, the Christian faith was recently defended and protected. Christian council members had been ceremonially opening up their council meetings with local pastors always praying in the name of Jesus Christ. Turns out, a Jew and an Atheist (sounds like a bad joke, which it is) were offended by the opening prayers and decided to sue so they could protect their ears from hearing the name of Jesus. As they said in their suit against the town of Greece: “[We] found the prayers offensive, intolerable and an affront to a diverse community.” Their attempt to prevent the prayers from further “disrupting or dividing the community” ended up traveling all the way to the New York State Supreme Court Fortunately, the Constitutionally-protected right to practice whatever religion you’d like was maintained. In Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway it was ruled it was permissible under the U.S. Constitution for pastors and council members to open up city council meetings with Christian prayers. Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his ruling: “The inclusion of a brief, ceremonial prayer as part of a larger exercise in civic recognition suggests that its purpose and effect are to acknowledge religious leaders and the institutions they represent, rather than to exclude or coerce nonbelievers… The prayer in this case has a permissible ceremonial purpose… It is not an unconstitutional establishment of religion.” The ruling is seen as a victory for Christians who have seen the freedom of religion dwindle over the years. Without a doubt, the framers of the Constitution knew this kind of thing would happen when they drafted the Constitution nearly 250 years ago. And in fact, it has been happening. Prayer is banned in schools. The mention of anything biblical is frowned upon and sometimes prohibited. And the nation continues down a slippery slope where you can be labeled a “terrorist” or a “hate monger” just for saying you are a Christian. So it’s nice to see that, in some way, the legal system is helping to protect the rights of Christians. (This article was transcribed from http://preservefreedom.org/ web site)