The yearly National Day of Prayer was first issued in 1952 by a combined declaration by Congress and then signed by President Truman. In 1988 this law was revised for a date by President Ronald Reagan, permanently setting it for the first Thursday of every May. Annually, the president signs a statement that promotes all Americans to pray on this day. http://www.geneva.edu/object/national_day_of_prayer_09
Recently a Federal judge in Wisconsin subordinated that requesting citizens to pray is unconstitutional.
Congressman Randy Forbes and Frank Wolf of Virginia, aside with Ambassador Tony Hall of Ohio are going to be holding a bipartisan news conference responding to that ruling. Along with them will be members of the congressional prayer caucus and other faith leaders.
This all started when a group called “The Freedom From Religion Foundation” filed a lawsuit against the federal government in 2008. This is a group of athiests and agnostics argue that a day of National Prayer is violating the separation of church and state.
The Obama Administration countered saying all the day does is acknowledge the function of religion in the United States. According to recent news, they did try to get the Federal judge to dismiss the whole case. http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2010-04-21/Controversy-over-the-National-Day-of-Prayer
I’m not trying to be an authority on this subject, but I am allowed to give my opinion at my own free will. I will only give it briefly though.
I agree that the National Day of prayer does not force anyone to pray. If it did then it might be an entirely different matter. It does not say that everyone has to pray.
I have to agree that, if it is true that the Obama Administration said. “that it is a day to acknowledge religion in the United States”, then I agree with them.
What does it hurt? I do not agree with everything the Obama administration puts out there, but I can applaud them for sticking up for this.
As we are never quite clear who Obama prays to, we can at least be assured that he isn’t keeping others from praying.
There is rumor going around that he cancelled the event for the past two years. However according to snopes.com and truthorfiction.com it was not cancelled, there just wasn’t a cermony at the Whitehouse.
However many people all over the Nation hold ceremonies and still hold the National Day of Prayer up, regardless of where it is held.
Apparently the National day of Prayer is bothering people who don’t even believe God exists. If they do not believe God exists, then what are they trying to accomplish? Perhaps next they might even be trying to keep members of our Nations political groups to stay out of the churches. But that is only a comparison in my opinion.
As long as we have churches and religion people are going to pray all over the world. Having a National Day of Prayer set aside “for those that pray everyday anyway” isn’t going to hurt anyone or anything.
They need to ignore it and focus on more operable issues that really do concern the well being of our Nation! This does not concern the well being of our Nation in general and certainly doesn’t compare to many of the things that should be addressed. You can make your own list.
The Christian people who are praying for our Nation are making a gesture that they want what is best for our Nation. The people against that, seem to have some issues, in my opinion. They are easily offended. Why are they getting their feathers ruffled over it?
I’m sure this article will ruffle some feathers, however, I will choose to not be offended because I really think that they could find better things to do than take a stand against prayer in the United States.
Should we tell athiests and agnostics that they are no longer allowed to have their free will? They obviously don’t like anything that stands against their beliefs. Are we supposed to just accept it when they stand up against ours?
I don’t force anyone to believe how I believe. That is up to every individual. But I do have my own beliefs.
All in all, no one can stop us from praying. That is one thing we can do whether it is ruled politically correct or not.
