Dan Courtney's Secular Invocation Before the Town Board of Greece, NY - YouTube

Atheist Dan Courtney delivers a historic secular invocation before a meeting of the Town Board of Greece, NY on July 15, 2014. Greece is the town at the center of the Greece v. Galloway Supreme Court case, which cleared the way for sectarian prayers at government meetings.

According to the Democrat & Chronicle:

Quoting philosopher Immanuel Kant and drawing on the words of the Declaration of Independence, Dan Courtney made history on Tuesday speaking before the Greece Town Board.

Courtney, past president of the Free Thinkers of Upstate New York, delivered the first atheist invocation at a town board meeting, following the May U.S. Supreme Court decision that said Greece's practice of allowing sectarian prayer was permissible, as long as the town didn't discriminate.

Noting the Declaration's assertion that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," Courtney said this central premise of the Founding Fathers "is today, more than ever, under assault. This central pillar of free society; this notion that is deeply heretical to authoritarian culture, proclaims that it is from the people that moral authority is derived."

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Outside, on the lawn of the Town Hall, free thinkers, atheists, non-religious, supportive religious and others gathered to decry the Supreme Court decision, and pledge that they will hold the court and governments to the decision's edict against discrimination.

"There is prejudice based on the misguided belief that belief in God is the only path to morality," said Ronald Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. "And we need to overcome that prejudice."

Dan Courtney's Secular Invocation Before the Town Board of Greece, NY - YouTube