Marsh v. Chambers
Case Date: 11/04/1983
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Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783 (1983),[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that government funding for chaplains was constitutional because of the "unique history" of the United States. Three days before the ratification of the 1st Amendment, containing the Establishment clause, the federal legislature authorized hiring a chaplain for opening sessions with prayer.
Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers sued in federal court claiming that the legislature's practice of opening sessions with a prayer offered by a state-supported chaplain was in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The district court held that the prayer did not violate the Constitution, but that state support for the chaplain did. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that both practices violated the Constitution. Justice Brennan, with Justice Marshall joining, wrote in a dissenting opinion, "The Court makes no pretense of subjecting Nebraska's practice of legislative prayer to any of the formal "tests" that have traditionally structured our inquiry under the Establishment Clause. That it fails to do so is, in a sense, a good thing, for it simply confirms that the Court is carving out an exception to the Establishment Clause, rather than reshaping Establishment Clause doctrine to accommodate legislative prayer."[1]
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