‘Americans United’ against National Day of Prayer

Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued this press release asking the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm a lower court decision which declared the Congressionally-mandated National Day of Prayer unconstitutional.

The current incarnation of the U.S. National Day of Prayer began in 1952 when President Truman signed a bill requiring each future president to declare a day of their choice as a ‘national day of prayer’. The concept of a National Day of Prayer is somewhat simply argued against given the establishment clause of the in the First Amendment, which states clearly that Congress may not pass any law enforcing religious observance.

Sarah Palin reiterates the notion of a Christian nation

In a recent appearance on the O’Reilly Factor, Sarah Palin states that “Judeo-Christian belief is the foundation of our laws.” The full discussion can be found here. There has been significant backlash on a variety of blogs and online communities to her comments. Some examples of the backlash comes from bloggers like PZ Myers, and CJ Werleman. The topic Palin discusses on the Factor is also something An American Atheist covered in an earlier article as well as on the show found here along with earlier entries. Many of the blogs and online communities take issue with whether or not Palin’s comments about the U.S. being a Christian nation are true. Few note, however, that even if this nation were founded on Christian values, it is still a poor argument she is making. The founders did not have a perfect system of government, they added into it a process to amend it and revise it. Abolishing slavery, instating universal suffrage, and the throng of changes we have made over the ages are examples of the revision process at work. Our laws should reflect what we deem to be good and just, or based on our current needs. Praise to the founding fathers for all they gave us, especially separation of church and state, but appeals solely to what the founding fathers intended on either side of the argument are in the end poor arguments.

National day of prayer: update

Three quick items about the recent national day of prayer case.

First, the Obama administration has said that it will appeal the FFRF v. Obama decision and give the traditional national day of prayer presidential proclamation. This is permissible because the judgment allows the Obama administration (at page 65 of the opinion) to exhaust appeals before they must stop enforcing 36 U.S.C. § 119.

If you want to read the FFRF v. Obama opinion, you can go here :

The opinion states that the national day of prayer violates the establishment clause, and is therefore unconstitutional. This point is strengthened by examples starting at page 57 of the opinion where past national day of prayer events were taken over by conservative Christians, and other religious groups were excluded. There are many examples of this problem all around the country.

Second, I found this great article from the New York Times about the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). It seems they are getting more publicity lately becuase of the FFRF v. Obama case. Link. More about the organization here.

Finally, this week Franklin Graham was “uninvited” from the national day of prayer event for some of his past anti-Muslim statements.

One of the great things about the first amendment is that it protects religions from themselves and each other. If there were no “national day of prayer” then Franklin Graham could do his own conservative Christian day of prayer, and Muslims could have their own day of prayer (actually, they already do), and everyone could pray to whoever they wanted to, without dragging the president and the federal government into their private religious practices.

Religious pluralism is good for religions and America in general, because when people who might be attracted to extremist religious groups befriend people from other religions, it moderates them. Religious pluralism can only exist when the government closely complies with the first amendment and respects no establishment of religion. Period.

For us atheists, we get to celebrate the national day of Reason. Enjoy your day thinking about how lucky we are to live in a country that respects religious freedom!

Hitchens and Perkins on CNN: National Day of Prayer

Here is an Anderson Cooper CNN segment highlighting the arguments in favor of and against the National Day of Prayer. There seems to be a hot debate in the media over a day that, previously, few knew existed. You can see the initial blog entry here.