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A 1952 decision to maintain a Federally Mandated National Day of Prayer was overturned in a sensible Court decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin. This was a victory for the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. Judge Crabb drove a stake through the heart of government-mandated religion by this timely decision.
While this will predictably create a firestorm of protest from those who love a good brainwashing protocol, someone needs to explain to the forum just why such an obviously biased religious mandate should be supported by our tax dollars, and against the will and beliefs of so many non-Christian citizens.
From the link:
"In her ruling, Crabb acknowledged the deep divide over the role of religion in America and the complex and often contradictory jurisprudence on the separation of church and state.
She said the federal statute ordering the president to make the annual proclamation serves no secular purpose, casts nonbelievers as outsiders and goes beyond the mere acknowledgment of religion to encouraging a practice best left to individual conscience.
Cobb said her ruling was not an attack on prayer but an effort to ensure religious liberty.
"The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy." she said in the decision."
She makes a pretty good legal and Constitutional case for her ruling, but the administration has said they will appeal it, so we'll have to see how it turns out. The ruling will not be enforced until the defendents exhaust their appeals, which may take years.
The original NDP was not limited to Christian's, but included a call for people of all faiths to pray on a specific day. Had that remained as it's intent, I doubt the law would have ever been challenged or overturned by the courts. As evidence of that, the group which brought the suit has been in existence for nearly 40 years, but never addressed the NDP until Bush began holding yearly, exclusively Christian services in the White House as a part of the NDP.
However, the NDP law was deliberately subverted to a Christian only practice during the Reagan Adminstration by the bureaucratic sleight of hand of creating the National Day of Prayer Task Force, headed by Shirley Dobson, and turning the management of the NDP over to them. That effectively made the NDP an exclusively Christian day of prayer, in spite of the law's intent and contrary to the will of Congress because Dobson's group would not invite other faiths to participate, or allow them to do so if they weren't "Christian" enough to suit them. For instance, Mormon's were prevented from participating on more than one occassion.
That transference of the the law from one calling all faiths to one of only allowing Christian's to participate opens the NDP to rulings just like the one made in Wisconsin because it DOES stamp Christianity with the official approval of government, a direct slap in the face to the 1st Amendment. I suspect those who did that within the Reagan adminstration and Focus on the Family knew that very well at the time. Perhaps they wanted it to be challenged in an effort to make Christianity the legal religion of America, which has always been one of the goals of the Evagelical political movement.
Given the case law that Judge ruled on, I'll be surprised if her ruling is overturned on appeal and I hope it isn't. However, the NDP can easily be saved by Congress by simply revoking the charter of the NDP Task Force and returning the law to it's original intent. Let's see if they have the guts to do it.
We don't have a national day of reflection, a national day of non-religious activity or a national day of so many other things that are actually an individuals concern.
I agree with the judges decision about this mandating (or attempting to mandate) religion in the form that a few wish and will not even consider alternatives.
If these people wish such a day, let them have it but do not try to force it on everyone else.
A 1952 decision to maintain a Federally Mandated National Day of Prayer was overturned in a sensible Court decision by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin. This was a victory for the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. Judge Crabb drove a stake through the heart of government-mandated religion by this timely decision.
While this will predictably create a firestorm of protest from those who love a good brainwashing protocol, someone needs to explain to the forum just why such an obviously biased religious mandate should be supported by our tax dollars, and against the will and beliefs of so many non-Christian citizens.
From the link:
"In her ruling, Crabb acknowledged the deep divide over the role of religion in America and the complex and often contradictory jurisprudence on the separation of church and state.
She said the federal statute ordering the president to make the annual proclamation serves no secular purpose, casts nonbelievers as outsiders and goes beyond the mere acknowledgment of religion to encouraging a practice best left to individual conscience.
Cobb said her ruling was not an attack on prayer but an effort to ensure religious liberty.
"The same law that prohibits the government from declaring a National Day of Prayer also prohibits it from declaring a National Day of Blasphemy." she said in the decision."
We don't need a "National Prayer Day"...that is ridiculous. If you want to pray..go ahead...but for the government workers to spend any time goofing off during work hours doing it...or a dime of taxpayer money devoted to it is just plain messed up.
We don't need a "National Prayer Day"...that is ridiculous. If you want to pray..go ahead...but for the government workers to spend any time goofing off during work hours doing it...or a dime of taxpayer money devoted to it is just plain messed up.
Can you imagine the unrest and outrage, Konraden, if we simply asked for a secular day, or a return to the original Founding Father's wishes for a secular approach to government?
I can't wait to hear some of the overreactions to this.
It should be some really good stuff
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