Satanic Temple Loses Discrimination Suit Against Boston

Boston’s practice of inviting religious leaders to bless city council meetings doesn’t violate constitutional prohibitions against the government establishing a religion, a First Circuit panel held in a case brought by the Satanic Temple Inc.

The Satanic Temple sued Boston for religious discrimination after it was denied an invitation to deliver a legislative prayer, a custom at each Boston City Council meeting.

“The Constitution does not require that legislative bodies accept all speakers who request to give invocations,” the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said Tuesday in an opinion authored by Judge Sandra L. Lynch.

The Satanic Temple failed to show “evidence of discrimination based on religious beliefs as to which speakers are invited, much less evidence of intentional discrimination,” the court said.

Councilors have invited Christian, Jewish, Unitarian, and Muslim speakers, as well as guests to give non-religious invocations. But the court noted councilors tend to invite a member of their community to give the invocation, a decision the city claims involves politics, not religion.

“City Councilors and their representatives have repeatedly stated that the Councilors choose invocation speakers in recognition of the speakers having benefited the communities which the individual Councilors represent,” Lynch wrote.

That selection criteria is consistent with the Establishment Clause of the US Constitution, the court held.

“There are many neutral, non-discriminatory reasons why TST has not been invited to give an invocation,” the opinion said.

Chief Judge David J. Barron and Judge William J. Kayatta, Jr. also sat on the panel.

Barron filed a concurring opinion to “raise concerns” with some of the city’s legislative prayer practices, including evidence in the record that he said could be intepreted as councilors relying solely on personal relationships in deciding who to invite.

“This ‘personal relationship’ criterion remains of concern to me because there are no written guidelines for the City’s seemingly ad hoc selection process,” Barron wrote. “The passages in the City’s brief that seem to suggest that such a criterion would be perfectly consonant with the Establishment Clause simply because it is not just based on ‘religious preference’ only enhance that concern.”

Kezhaya Law PLC represents the Satanic Temple. Edward Whitesell represents Boston.

The case is Satanic Temple v. City of Boston, 1st Cir., No. 23-1642, 8/6/24.