{"id":146,"date":"2009-03-22T22:38:16","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T22:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/03\/government-asks-people-to-pray.html"},"modified":"2009-03-22T22:38:16","modified_gmt":"2009-03-22T22:38:16","slug":"government-asks-people-to-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2009\/03\/government-asks-people-to-pray.html","title":{"rendered":"Government Asks People to Pray Really Hard on One Day in May"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, Jay, I enjoyed our debate last week at Gettysburg College and look forward to doing more live and in-person events.  I hope you are now satisfied that no students in Kentucky<\/a> were threatened with arrest and that all of the furor<\/a> was caused by students who apparently didn’t believe that school rules applied to them.  But onward…<\/p>\n

Of course I cannot tolerate National Day of Prayer, the first Monday in May.  The fact that the government has the audacity to declare such an event is mind-numbing.  I always wonder what the Congress and the President think we should be doing that day: pray harder, longer, louder, or with hands more tightly clasped together?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\nI have actually participated in a number of “prayer plus” events that day, including one in Oklahoma City which featured speakers who were Christians, Jews, pagans, and atheists–as well as a Baptist gospel singer–all promoting the value of religious freedom for everybody.<\/p>\n

Now, your argument in the Freedom From Religion lawsuit<\/a> is highly problematic.  The fact that historically there have been prayers at government events hardly dictates the conclusion that Congress should be able to set aside one day for special prayer recognition.  But I know where you are going with this.  You want to have the court do what I’ll admit a 5-4 majority did in a 2005 Supreme Court case<\/a> involving the placement of a Ten Commandments monument near the Texas state capitol.  There the majority basically concluded  that since nobody had complained about it for 40 years, it couldn’t have been that big a deal and was therefore constitutional.<\/p>\n

Although I am skeptical that the Ninth Circuit will adopt the Freedom From Religion view (and indeed may rule that the group lacks standing to even pursue the matter) I trust that it will never go as far as you suggest. Jay, of course history matters; however, so does the impact of new realities.  One of those realities is that we have 2000 different religions in this country and 15-20 million nonbelievers, freethinkers, atheists and humanists.  Congress would do well to stick to the things it knows something about (although at the moment I’m having trouble thinking what those topics might be) and leave any and all praying to those who do it and will continue to do it without their intervention.<\/p>\n

To subscribe to Lynn v. Sekulow, click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, Jay, I enjoyed our debate last week at Gettysburg College and look forward to doing more live and in-person events.  I hope you are now satisfied that no students in Kentucky were threatened with arrest and that all of the furor was caused by students who apparently didn’t believe that school rules applied to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,2,5],"tags":[385,391,51,95,67,96],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-courts","category-separation-of-church-and-state","tag-congress","tag-national-day-of-prayer","tag-news","tag-ninth-circuit-court-of-appeals","tag-politics","tag-prayers"],"yoast_head":"\nGovernment Asks People to Pray Really Hard on One Day in May - Lynn v. 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An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}