Repeal the National Day of Prayer

President Obama indicated recently that he decided not to invite James and Shirley Dobson to the White House for the National Day of Prayer,  May 7.

In fact, in another repudiation of conservative tradition, there is no official prayer service at the White House this year. The president will instead issue a proclamation, as required by law.

Bravo, Mr. President.

The president should take one step further, however, and ask Congress to create legislation to repeal the National Day of Prayer. The law that established the National Day of Prayer violates the principle of separation of church and state enshrined in the Constitution by the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The legislation establishing the National Day of Prayer was signed by President Eisenhower on April 17, 1952. You may recall that this is the same dark era that saw the words “under God” added to the Pledge of Allegiance.

This was done during a time of anxiety, when our country felt the threat of communism and when many legislators, especially Joseph McCarthy, wanted to assert, against all democratic principles, the United States as a Christian nation.

The Dobsons are fixtures of the religious right. Mr. Dobson heads the right-wing evangelical Christian group Focus on the Family. He is a notoriously anti-gay religious conservative who  organized massive rallies to support President Bush’s reelection campaign and cheekily demanded that the president hew to the anti-gay, pro-life line more closely.

President Bush, of course, obliged. He made a point of inviting the Dobsons to National Day of Prayer observances held in the White House.

Mrs. Dobson heads the National Day of Prayer Task Force. The organization is headquartered in the Focus on the Family complex in Colorado Springs. It’s website indicates that it is the “official website” for the National Day of Prayer.

What is troubling about this is that although the law does not specify that Christian prayer is mandated, the National Day of Prayer Task Force advocates very specific evangelical Christian observance.

A lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation alleges that the National Day of Prayer Task force is “‘working hand-in-glove’ with the government in organizing the National Day of Prayer.”

President Obama, who has been too nice to the religious right, has nevertheless been inspiring in his willingness to uphold the wall of separation between church and state.

In an April 6 speech during his visit to Turkey, President Obama said, “One of the great strengths of the United States is…we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation, or a Jewish nation, or a Muslim nation, we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

Exactly.

It is time that President Obama live up to these ideals and act to rid our country of this regressive law. Americans must feel free to pray or not pray, and the president should not be required by law to each year proclaim an unconstitutional call to prayer.