Praying for Clarity: Lund, Bormuth, and the Split Over Legislator-Led Prayer

Abstract

On September 6, 2017, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit released its opinion in Bormuth v. County of Jackson, finding prayers offered by the Jackson County Board of Commissioners constitutional under the Establishment Clause. That decision involved detailed factual analysis, which varied greatly from the analysis used by the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to find nearly identical prayers by the Rowan County Board of Commissioners unconstitutional in Lund v. Rowan County on July 14, 2017. This Comment argues that the method of analysis conducted by the en banc Fourth Circuit in Lund is the more comprehensive and, therefore proper, method of factual analysis contemplated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Town of Greece v. Galloway. In contrast, the analysis employed by the en banc Sixth Circuit’s decision in Bormuth fails to fully consider the challenged practice, and is therefore flawed.