National Day Of Prayer: Obama Scales Back From Bush

MADISON, Wis. — The White House is planning a muted observance of Thursday's National Day of Prayer, a response that has disappointed both Christian conservatives and an atheist group that wants to end the tradition.

Congress established the day in 1952 and in 1988 set the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama would issue such a proclamation Thursday but not hold any public events with religious leaders as President George W. Bush did.

Obama's decision drew a rebuke from the National Day of Prayer Task Force, a private group that promotes prayer events around the country. The task force estimates 2 million Americans attended more than 40,000 events marking the day last year.

"We are disappointed in the lack of participation by the Obama administration," said task force chairwoman Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson. "At this time in our country's history, we would hope our President would recognize more fully the importance of prayer."

The debate over the day has landed in federal court in Wisconsin. The Obama administration has asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claims the day violates the separation of church and state.

In a rare alliance, 31 mostly Republican members of Congress and a prominent Christian legal group are joining the administration to fight the lawsuit.

Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-Director Annie Laurie Gaylor welcomed Obama's more scaled back observance but said she has been shocked by his administration's strong defense of the day in court.

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The Madison-based group of 12,000 atheists and agnostics filed the lawsuit near the end of Bush's second term. It asks a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and to order presidents and governors to stop issuing prayer proclamations.

The Obama administration asked U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb to dismiss the case in March. The administration argued the group has no legal standing to sue, said the tradition's roots date to 1775 and that most presidents have invoked faith in a higher power.

It also said the day does not promote religion and argued that preventing presidents from issuing a proclamation would unfairly restrict how they communicate with Americans.

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On the Net:

National Day of Prayer Task Force: http://www.ndptf.org

Freedom From Religion Foundation: http://www.ffrf.org

Comments

[DonCosenza]

I hope everybody had a happy National Day of Reason!
http://www.nationaldayofreason.org/

[dharma41]

Last night Rachel Maddow did a segment on this issue. Her guest was Rev C. Welton Gaddy, who I thought brilliantly exposed the hypocritical political agenda of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. Take a look:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#30632080

[kwinter]

Thanks for the link, I missed it last night!

If all religionists were like Rev C. Welton Gaddy, I wouldn't have a such problem with them.

BTW, Did Rachel come out as a freethinker there, -- "My own personal beliefs, or lack thereof"?

[RationalDubSteppa]

Day of Pray = Day of !gnorance.

[steveobviously]

it really does my heart good to read the posts from all of these enlightened people! i'm serious. sometimes i feel so all alone in this "christian" nation. thanks folks.

[RationalDubSteppa]

I know what you mean mate, but trust me your not alone... unlike in years past, rationalist are no longer willing to let themselves to be brown beaten by fundamentalist.

[steveobviously]

less than1% of americans went against christ's instructions to the pharisees that prayer should be a private thing between you and your god. maybe there are some real christians out there. as for the others ,maybe you should do more reading and less judging. i'm an atheist but at least i've actually read the book that you give lip service to.

[kwinter]

"i'm an atheist but at least i've actually read the book that you give lip service to."

Reading that book was partly what lead me to rejecting the idea of a christian god. Then all the other gods just fell like dominoes. When I examined evidence (or lack of) for any gods, I wound up an atheist like you.

Christian should really hope more people don't actually read their book.

[crowepps]

When I was young, in the '50s, I attended an ecumenical National Day of Prayer event in Fairbanks, Alaska, and remember being very impressed that there were not only Catholic priests and Protestant ministers involved, but also that a Jewish rabbi was present. It was the first time I had ever seen a rabbi and it made a real impression on me that the event was so inclusive.

Unfortunately, the National Day of Prayer Task Force led by Dobson does NOT promote such inclusive events. Their National Day of Prayer observances are only for Christians. I don't have any problems with a National Day of Prayer at all, but I sure do dislike the idea of having a federally proclaimed and sponsored National Day of (Christian only) Prayer since it implies that those citizens who are of other faiths aren't 'real' Americans.

[CaptainZero1969]

"The importance of prayer"...which would be what, exactly?

[brijit]

I'd love to ask Shirley that question. And a few more. Like "Why wait for one day a year to pray if praying is so important?" And "Why not pray to yourself whenever appropriate instead of making a public spectacle of yourself and your prayer?" And lastly, "Do you actually read the Bible particularly Matthew 5:5-6?"

[wonketteRAWKS]

Why the proclamation at all?

[brandnewstuff]

Christain Consevatives need to invest in reading the dark side and understand relgion is the joke that makes Benjamin Netanyahu laugh his ass off - exported democracy in a world of exploited demagoguery

[helonias]

I think we do need tp pray for the folks we tortured and the families of the Iraqis and Afghans we killed and maimed.

[hark]

I think, if I were a religious man, that I would pray to God to remind folks that he already knows what is in their hearts and minds, and that their prayers are unnecessary, and counterproductive. We should, instead, put all those wasted hours in prayer tackling the problems that we have on our plates.

[slaxx]

i'm not religious, but i have nothing against prayer. it makes people feel safe and comforted. but i'm not too crazy about muddling the line between church and state and the promotion of fairy tales that all too often create problems here on earth.

[helonias]

Actions instead of words

[David Dial]

Actually praying can be likened to meditation or introspection if you remove all the mumbo jumbo so, in a mumbo jumboless environment, prayer could be quite useful in the drive our grandmothers instilled in us to clean up our plates.

[slaxx]

what's up with the 1950's - it was also the same decade that they inserted "under god" in the pledge of allegiance and "in god we trust" on our currency.

conservatives use these two talking points as testiments to to the fact that our country was "founded on christian principles" yet they have only been around for 50 years and it was completely politically motivated. you know, that whole forcing your beliefs on others thing that conservatives and the devout love to do.

[judiNJ]

I was a kid in the 50s when they inserted "under God" into the pledge and remember I was really upset that they changed the pledge of allegiance, like it was a blasphemy or something. It seemed very wrong to me as a child. Hmmm, a very young "conservative". How did I end up a proud lefty?

[slaxx]

it does seem kind of blasphemous to me; as if god belongs to our country.

they did it to make themselves feel safer; as if if we ackowldge god he will protect us.

[David Dial]

Here is the beautiful part of the whole thing. Due, possibly, to nothing more than the passage of time, the goofballs who inserted those things back in the fifties are in their seventies and eighties now and will soon be just dust in the wind. We are, you might say, at the end of an error. It is almost Darwinian. We try different things. Some work. Some don't. The ones that don't become extinct. The ones that do are passed on to future generations to build upon. A wise investor might want to buy a Republican or two. They have little or no value today but as they become ever more rare, who knows?

[meko]

It was an attempt to differentiate us from the "Godless Communists"

[TheMellowFellow]

It all happened in the 50's because of the Red Scare. America desperately wanted to separate itself from the "godless Communists" so they started injecting god in every aspect of their government, including the currency and the pledge of allegiance, and people went along because they were scared shitless of the Russians.

[TexasDem0]

If they had only prayed harder, it would have been a bigger event. Maybe.

[loveobamas]

THE POLITICAL BASTARDIZATION OF RELIGION

Evangelicals are the bullies and hypocrites who believe the earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old despite it being 4,500,000,000 years old. The "rationalization" that the word "day" may not mean 24 hours is an admission that the bible IS NOT a literal document, but one that is literally dependent on the reader's subjective/biased interpretation rather than a verbatim dissemination of "god's words" or his intentions.
It's amazing that fundamentalists who claim to base their values on the words in a book pick and choose which words ARE and ARE NOT to be interpreted literally/factually.

Why should a book that has been translated numerous times from numerous languages by numerous fallible human beings over a period of more than 2,000 years be necessary as proof of and or a justification for one's moral values? When faith itself is completely ethereal, why do so many people base their religious values on the written word?

The majority of people who place so much emphasis on a bible DO NOT practice ALL the values in that bible nor do they project the grace and tolerance of an enlightened believer. Where in any interpretation of any bible does it suggest that god wants people to use his words as a political weapon or litmus test?

[springsm]

I think you should clarify the evangelicals to say conservative fundamentalist evangelicals. They are the ones who are literalists.

[DeBartolo]

President Obama upsets Christian conservatives every time he open his mouth

[springsm]

And yet his little group of his "prayer" bunch are all conservatives..some do pose has not, but they are.

[Roguewolf]

So 77% of the US are conservative?