Summer Institute June 24-26, 2014
Townhall Roleplay
Town of Greece, NY
Should town board meeting begin meetings with clergy-led prayer?
Objectives
Students will:
· participate in mock townhall
· analyze a position
· practice persuading others to that position
· listen for understanding of others’ positions
· practice compromise or consensus-building
· understand that active participation in democracy can be local
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Warm-up/Discussion
Tell students that this is a role-playing activity in which they will try to influence how their town meetings are run. Tell them that they’ll consider real-world issues that may not have a right or wrong solution.
During the town meeting, each student will play the role of a person or group member with strong opinions about the question being considered: Should town board meeting begin meetings with clergy-led prayer? Encourage students to “get into the role,” doing their best to represent the point of view of the person or group they represent even if it is not their own.
Steps
Preface
Explain that the Town Board makes public policy. Policies are influenced by what the community wants for their town. Making public policy involves negotiation, compromise and trade-offs. What finally gets approved (or turned down) usually reflects the interests and objections of different people in the community.
1. Divide the class into five groups, review roles (15 min)
-1. 1. Stephens and supporters (atheists)
-1. 2. Town Board
-1. 3. Christian Coalition
-1. 4. Galloway and the Jewish Federation
-1. 5. League of Cities
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Give each student a profile of the character they’ will represent (Stephens and supporters, Town Board, Christian Coalition, Galloway and the Jewish Federation, and League of Cities). Ask students to read their own character’s profile. If time allows, also read the descriptions of the other characters so that they understand the point of view of others.
Explain that their job is to play the role they’ve been given, working with others who are playing the same role and negotiating with people playing different roles to make sure that their own interests are reflected in the policy ultimately adopted by the Town Board.
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As a group, they should plan their comments to the Town Board. Encourage students to think about what the other characters will be asking for and figure out whether they have the same interests (and should consult with the other group) or whether they are likely to have opposing views and need to decide how they will convince the Town Board to vote for their side. They may also decide to try to negotiate with opposing groups before the council meeting to see whether they can agree to a compromise.
2. Networking/Interviewing/Mingling (10 min)
In character, students introduce themselves to other students not in their group. Find where there is common ground, as well as where your groups differ.
3. Town Meeting (30 minutes)
Arrange a table at the front of the classroom where the city council members will sit. Explain the ground rules for the meeting:
· Be courteous to others even when your character disagrees with someone
· Listen without interrupting while others are speaking
· Be open-minded; try to understand an issue from other points of view
The Galloway and Stephens groups make their presentations first, since they are asking the Board to change its current policy regarding prayer before meetings. Representatives from other groups will follow. Each group has maximum 5-minutes; this includes questions from the Town Board. The Town Board deliberates in a “gold fish bowl” setting. That is, they talk about their observations and findings, and negotiate with each other without any interruption or input from the audience. They then present their policy position to the audience (10 minutes total).
Debrief
Points of discussion may include topics such as:
· challenge of taking a position other than your own;
· challenge of persuading others to your position;
· free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment;
· local public policy-making;
· role of compromise and consensus building; and
· how youth can be involved in local government.
Allow ample time to help students to connect the dots!
This topic is based on a case decided by the United States Supreme Court on May 5, 2014, Town of Greece v. Galloway, 572 U.S. (2014).
1. Stephens and Supporters (Atheists)
As a regular attendee of the Town Board meetings and as an atheist you feel that the Christian prayers marginalize you, other non-believers, people of non-Christian faiths. You feel that the prayer before each meeting, with the clergy members often urging the audience to participate, puts pressure on non-believers to participate in something they don’t believe in and has an exclusionary effect.
Your Priorities/Concerns Are:
· You want to have no opening prayer at the Town Board meetings. As someone who does not believe in God, such overt religious prayers before the meetings makes you feel marginalized, excluded and uncomfortable.
· You want the Town Board meetings to be thoughtful and respectful of the diversity of all belief systems present in the Town of Greece and all across America.
· You want the Town Board meetings to reflect the principle of “separation of church and state” that is so important to American democracy.
· You believe the establishment clause of the First Amendment was meant to stop the government from endorsing a certain set of religious views and beliefs. Because opening remarks from clergy included Christian prayers, you feel this indicates an unconstitutional preference of one belief system over another.
· You believe that because the Town Board meetings are not optional for everyone (police officers must attend one as a part of the swearing into office process, students must attend one for graduation requirements, employees of the Town Board are required to attend, etc.) having this prayer before the meetings amounts to forcing people to participate in Christian worship.
· You believe that such overt and clear Christian practices at Town Board meetings discourages non-Christians from coming and participating in local government, in effect this practice marginalizes all non-Christians and erodes the Constitution.
2. Town Board
You are a member of the Town Board. You believe this practice of opening prayer is appropriate and you don’t think that the Board is forcing their beliefs on anyone. As a member of the Board you see your policy as hands-off – the Board does not set nor decide the contents of the opening prayer, and it does not select the prayer-givers. Rather, you, as a member of the Board, send out invitations to a variety of religious leaders and give all who are willing the opportunity to conduct the opening prayer.
Your Priorities/Concerns Are:
· As an elected official you want to make sure that you are popular enough with the voters to be re-elected. As a leader of a heavily Christian town, this means you support the practice of opening each Town Board meeting with a prayer that usually is Christian in nature.
· You do NOT want to have to wade into deciding whether or not an opening prayer is “sectarian” or “non-sectarian”. You believe this would in effect force you and other Board members into deciding religious matters, such as deciding what constituted a non-sectarian prayer. You believe this would constitute an inappropriate mixture of state and church.
· You believe that the Board has made appropriate efforts to bring in religious leaders of other denominations, but because the Town of Greece is so heavily Christian most of the volunteers to lead the opening prayers happen to be of Christian faith. You have made efforts to bring rabbis and other types of religious leaders in to lead the opening prayer, but the fact remains that almost all of those religious leaders willing to come in are of Christian faith.
· You believe that this tradition helps to fulfill the religious needs of your citizens by solemnizing important public occasions with invocations.
3. Christian Coalition
You belong to the Christian Coalition; you think this is an anti-Christian attack on the ability to express one’s faith and heritage in public. You feel that not allowing Christian prayers before town meetings is an attack on the religious freedom and liberty so valued by our Founders.
Your Priorities/Concerns Are:
· Protect the ability of the Town Board to invite Christian clergy to offer opening prayers before Town Board meetings.
· Protect this time-honored tradition of having opening prayers before legislative sessions. This is something that the Founders themselves did before a legislative session; if they considered it appropriate then it is certainly appropriate for us today.
· Stop Galloway, Stephens and their supporters from continuing to spread the myth of the “separation of Church and State”.
· Make sure the Town Board meetings continue to reflect the Christian character of this predominantly Christian town.
· Stop this attack on religious freedom. Local clergy are the ones who are responding to the invitations to lead the opening prayer; they shouldn’t be stopped from doing so just because there aren’t any non-Christians available to lead the opening prayer. Why prevent them from exercising their religious liberty if it is a practice that most of the people in the town agree with?
· You believe the Establishment Clause is meant to protect freedom to practice the religion you choose, but that this does not mean freedom from religion or expressions of religious faith.
4. Galloway and the Jewish Federation
The Jewish Federation is dedicated to the defense of the religious rights and freedoms of all Americans. The Jewish Federation has often collaborated with other minority groups in shared strivings to realize fully the constitutional guarantees of protection of conscience and liberty. As a member of the Jewish Federation you are committed to the idea that the government should not involve itself in sponsoring, encouraging or discouraging religious observations or practices. You believe that prayer concerns individual conscience and belief, and thus should be left to individuals.
Your Priorities Are:
· Stopping what you believe amounts to a public endorsement by the Town Board of Christian faith and beliefs.
· You want the Town Board to do a better job of making people of all faiths and beliefs feel included by inviting members of other religions and beliefs to lead the opening prayer. The 4 times they had non-Christian leaders say a prayer since they started doing this in 1999 is not enough. There must be a consistent and constant effort to invite religious leaders from all denominations to lead the prayer.
· The 4 times a non-Christian person said the prayer all occurred immediately after you first complained of this practice and then never again. For you this demonstrates lack of a true push on behalf of the Town Board to bring in other religions.
· As a person of Jewish faith, this public act of Christian prayer makes you feel ostracized and excluded. You believe that Town Board should practice non-sectarian prayer. As a person of faith you do not believe that prayer should be banned from the public sphere completely, but rather that such prayer should not involve the government seemingly taking sides, promoting, or otherwise encouraging the practice of one religion over all others.
· Make the Town Board change their opening prayers to ones that are much more generic and inclusive.
· You believe opening prayer with such heavy Christian undertones creates an atmosphere where non-Christians feel that they have to participate in another’s religious practice in order to take part in civic activities.
· As a Jew, you are very concerned that your children will be forced to participate in a Christian practice against their beliefs in order to fulfill the state-mandated civic requirement needed to graduate high school. You want Jewish children to able fulfill this requirement and feel like they are part of the community and local government. You do not want them feeling like they are being excluded, or that somehow their stature and place within this community and town is diminished because they are not Christian.
o If the Town Board does not stop this practice, you want the rule that requires attendance of a Town Board meeting a requirement for high school graduation to be changed. Rather, you believe they should be able to fulfill their civics requirement by attending some sort of governmental event that does not begin with a Christian prayer.
5. League of Cities
The League of Cities is dedicated to helping local governments build better communities. As a representative of the LoC, you are interested in setting a policy and precedent that will most easily allow cities across the country to follow with minimal liability to lawsuits resulting from such practices. Your main priorities are building stronger communities and providing support to city leaders to help ensure that all cities are run as smoothly as possible.
Your Priorities Are:
· Making sure that the guidelines for whom can give an opening prayer at such a session or what can the content of the opening prayer be, are easy to decipher and follow.
· Overall you are neutral on whether the current practice of the Town of Greece is constitutional or not, rather you are focused on making sure that the Town of Greece comes to a solution that is practical, consistent and relatively easy to follow and apply with certainty.
· You feel that as long as they do not force the public to participate, or use non-participating as motive for not cooperating with a non-participant in the prayer, that they should be free to have who they please do the opening prayer.
· You do NOT want this issue to become one of making sure that the prayer is non-sectarian or a generic prayer. You believe that this makes it too difficult for the board members and cities to determine whether they are following the proper procedure.
· You want a practical standard for the cities to follow that provides them with certainty about whether they will be exposed to liability from such practices.
· While overall you are neutral on what would be the best outcome here, you do feel that the Town of Greece has overall executed the legislative prayer practice well; as you believe they have followed the standard set forth in Marsh v. Chambers (practice of legislative prayer is okay as long as the legislative body does not exploit this opportunity). You believe that standard provides a clear and practical standard for legislative bodies and governments to follow.
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