{"id":282,"date":"2010-05-06T14:44:27","date_gmt":"2010-05-06T14:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/say-your-goodbyes-to-the-last.html"},"modified":"2010-05-06T14:44:27","modified_gmt":"2010-05-06T14:44:27","slug":"say-your-goodbyes-to-the-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/say-your-goodbyes-to-the-last.html","title":{"rendered":"Say Your Goodbyes to the Last National Day of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Jay,<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I prayed today.&nbsp; I forgot that this was National Day of Prayer.&nbsp; I hope no members of Congress objected to me acting on my own and basically not giving one hoot what they thought about it.&nbsp; Maybe I should have filed my prayer in advance to make sure John Boehner and Mitch McConnell thought it was good enough for this NATIONAL day of Prayer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I pray everyday, but I never really thought it was the<br \/>\ngovernment&#8217;s business. That&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t get why members of Congress thinks it&#8217;s<br \/>\ntheir business to advise me on when and how to pray, either.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Yet today is another congressionally mandated National Day<br \/>\nof Prayer. And since Americans are free to pray whenever they want, it&#8217;s<br \/>\nobvious this &#8220;holiday&#8221; not really about the freedom to worship, but rather another<br \/>\nopportunity for certain religious groups to push their narrow viewpoint on the<br \/>\nrest of us. I&#8217;ll let my colleague tell you why <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.au.org\/2010\/05\/06\/the-national-day-of-prayer-despite-court-ruling-the-religious-right%E2%80%99s-public-piety-pageant-goes-on\/?utm_source=au-homepage&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Recently-on-homepage\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I&#8217;m tired of the Congress telling me when and how I should<br \/>\npray. I sincerely hope this is the last National Day of Prayer. This nonsense<br \/>\nhas gone long enough.<span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;color: black;font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'\"><span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"color: black;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'\"><font size=\"3\"><span style=\"color: black\"><font size=\"3\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><span><span><span style=\"color: black\"><font size=\"3\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><span><span style=\"color: black\">&nbsp; (By the way, I wonder if Congress was praying or not praying at the moment the Dow dropped 900 points at one point this afternoon.)<font size=\"5\" face=\"Times New Roman\"><br \/><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;color: black;font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'\"><span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;line-height: 115%;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\"><span style=\"color: black;font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'\"><font size=\"3\"><span style=\"color: black\"><font size=\"3\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><span><span><span style=\"color: black\"><font size=\"3\"><font face=\"Times New Roman\"><span><span style=\"color: black\"><font size=\"5\" face=\"Times New Roman\">To subscribe to &#8220;Lynn v. Sekulow&#8221; click <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.feedburner.com\/fb\/a\/emailverifySubmit?feedId=2290560\"><font size=\"5\" face=\"Times New Roman\">here<\/font><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span>&nbsp;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'\"><font color=\"#000000\">&nbsp;<\/font><\/span><span> <br \/><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jay, I prayed today.&nbsp; I forgot that this was National Day of Prayer.&nbsp; I hope no members of Congress objected to me acting on my own and basically not giving one hoot what they thought about it.&nbsp; Maybe I should have filed my prayer in advance to make sure John Boehner and Mitch McConnell thought&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,94],"tags":[331,289,391,51,67,332],"class_list":["post-282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress","category-national-day-of-prayer","tag-dow","tag-government-sponsored-religion","tag-national-day-of-prayer","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-stock-market"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Say Your Goodbyes to the Last National Day of Prayer - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/say-your-goodbyes-to-the-last.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Say Your Goodbyes to the Last National Day of Prayer - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. 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\/282","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=282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}