On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed the district court' s decision and held that the Board' s prayer practice was constitutional

A Fourth Circuit panel described the "policy of nondiscrimination" language as prohibiting the government from "favor [ing] one religious view to the exclusion of others."

—articulating that "it is the combination of these elementsnot any particular feature alone-that'threatens to blur the line between church and state to a degree unimaginable in Town of Greece

The Rowan County commissioners, when assembled in their regular public meetings, are the very embodiment of the state

The majority held that the practice was consistent with tradition as outlined in Town of Greece and was not coercive.

—the fact that board members were the sole prayer-givers actually constituted a governmental endorsement of religion.

The district court in Lund decided that under Town of Greece rationale, the practice of either the chairman of or other members of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners administering prayer before Board meetings was unconstitutional

Judges have disagreed as to whether Justice Kennedy's plurality opinion or Judge Thomas's concurrence constitutes the "narrowest grounds" on the coercion issue.

It is not just that the government permitted Christian prayers at government sessions, but that the government itself was wholly responsible for them

In board meetings, it fell to non-Christian attendees, facing their elected representatives and surrounded by bowed heads, to choose 'between staying seated and unobservant, or acquiescing to the prayer practice.'... The Rowan County board can solemnize its meetings without creating such tensions [on non-Christian attendees

[BOOK] Constitutions and religion