Do Recent Efforts to Police Content of Prayer at Government Events Demonstrate the Divisive Potential of This Ceremonial Practice?

Two recent news items highlight the potential constitutional hazards that emerge when governmental ceremonies put prayer on the agenda.  The Religion Clause Blog picks up a post from Dan Gilgoff's God and Country noting that the Obama administration requests that local clergy who have been invited by the White House to give an invocation at presidential appearances submit the text of the prayer that would be delivered for review by the White House Office of Public Liaison. This pre-clearance protocol presumably seeks to encourage inclusive language and avoid potentially offensive content. Although no submitted prayer is reported to have been rejected thus far, the pre-delivery review process has prompted alterations of at least one clergy member's practice. Although, as the Gilgoff post observes, Native American prayer would have ordinarily been improvised, a representative of the Tohono O'odham Nation selected to deliver the invocation at the President's Phoenix appearance wrote out his prayer in advance in order for it to be reviewed by White House personnel.  Earlier in the month, the Washington Post's On Faith blog reported that a group of Oklahoma legislators had unsuccessfully attempted to have a prayer delivered at the opening of a legislative session removed from the record. The content of the prayer itself, an adaptation of the Prayer of St. Francis, does not appear to have sparked any objection, but it had been preceded by the designated minister's acknowledgment of the presence of his parents and his partner/fiance and this reference communicated the sexual orientation of  the minister, who had been invited to participate by the only openly gay member of the Oklahoma legislature. This revelation seems to have prompted the objection, explained as having been "motivated by faith" when the sponsor of the resolution to strike the prayer from the record was later interviewed.            

JFB