When one of the nation’s leading experts on the law and history of religion, University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, went to the lectern to challenge the Town Board’s prayer practice, he seemed to get immediately into trouble with his core argument that the people who show up at board meetings because they have business with the town officials would be “coerced” into going along with prayers even over their personal objection, so as not to offend the officials from whom they were seeking action.