Supreme Court upholds ban on sectarian prayer at City Council

Wednesday December 18, 2002

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The California Supreme Court declined Wednesday to review a lower court's ruling that prohibits the Burbank City Council beginning its public meetings with sectarian prayers.

The high court let stand a September opinion from an appeals court, which ordered Burbank to advise anyone conducting a prayer as part of a council meeting that it may not be sectarian.

The city council in Burbank, a suburb of about 200,000 people in the San Fernando Valley, has begun its meetings with an invocation by a member of a non-denominational ministerial association since 1953.

Activists sued Burbank after a minister delivered a prayer invoking the name of Jesus Christ before a council meeting in November 1999.

The case is Rubin v. Burbank, S110765.

(Copyright 2002 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)