Canadian Court Rules Catholic Mayor Can Offer Prayer Before Meetings

I wonder if this idea would fly in the United States:

A Catholic mayor in Canada had his prayers answered when an appeals court ruled that saying a prayer before council meetings does not compromise the government body’s neutrality, the Toronto Sun reported.

Jean Tremblay, the Catholic mayor of Saguenay, Quebec, fought the order to stop reciting prayer and to remove a crucifix and a statue of Jesus Christ from the chamber. According to the paper, the ruling overturned a 2011 decision by a human-rights tribunal.

The three-member court, in a 30-page ruling, criticized the mayor’s “intransigent” attitude, but ruled there “was no real conflict” between the prayers and the moral convictions of Alain Simoneau, a local atheist who argued the prayer violated his rights.