{"id":647,"date":"2008-04-30T16:12:20","date_gmt":"2008-04-30T16:12:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con.php"},"modified":"2008-04-30T16:12:20","modified_gmt":"2008-04-30T16:12:20","slug":"muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","title":{"rendered":"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adelle M. Banks and Nicole Neroulias<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n(RNS) A Muslim advocacy group is partnering with a Jewish online organization that has called for &#8220;inclusive&#8221; observances of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 1).<br \/>\n&#8220;Contact your governor and other elected representatives to ask them to make sure any National Prayer Day event they sponsor or attend is inclusive and representative of our nation&#8217;s religious diversity,&#8221; reads an &#8220;action alert&#8221; from the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.<br \/>\nJews on First has questioned the application process for coordinators affiliated with the National Day of Prayer Task Force, headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.<br \/>\nThe Jewish group said the prayer day, signed into law by President Harry Truman in 1952, has been &#8220;hijacked&#8221; by the task force, which seeks coordinators who agree with a statement of faith declaring that the Bible is the &#8220;inerrant Word of the Living God.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;We should carry out the original intent of the National Day of Prayer instituted by President Truman, to encourage Americans of all faiths to take part in spiritual events that bring our nation together,&#8221; said CAIR National Director Tahra Goraya.<br \/>\nIn a separate but related move, atheists who say they are fed up with the National Day of Prayer are proposing an alternative annual activity: &#8220;National Gift of Life Day,&#8221; a chance to offer blood instead of blessings.<br \/>\n&#8220;We know that prayer does not work, but medical science does,&#8221; says Kenneth Bronstein, president of the New York City Atheists, which will hold its blood drive on Thursday at the Citigroup Center in midtown Manhattan.<br \/>\nMichael Calhoun, a spokesman for Dobson&#8217;s Task Force, declined to comment on the protests, but said the event was based on America&#8217;s constitutional rights of freedom of speech and religion.<br \/>\n&#8220;We just hope everybody across the country will unite together in prayer for our communities, our leaders and our nation,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2008 Religion News Service.  All rights reserved.  No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adelle M. Banks and Nicole Neroulias Religion News Service (RNS) A Muslim advocacy group is partnering with a Jewish online organization that has called for &#8220;inclusive&#8221; observances of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 1). &#8220;Contact your governor and other elected representatives to ask them to make sure any National Prayer Day&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer<\/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\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Adelle M. Banks and Nicole Neroulias Religion News Service (RNS) A Muslim advocacy group is partnering with a Jewish online organization that has called for &#8220;inclusive&#8221; observances of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 1). &#8220;Contact your governor and other elected representatives to ask them to make sure any National Prayer Day&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-04-30T16:12:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer","og_description":"By Adelle M. Banks and Nicole Neroulias Religion News Service (RNS) A Muslim advocacy group is partnering with a Jewish online organization that has called for &#8220;inclusive&#8221; observances of the National Day of Prayer on Thursday (May 1). &#8220;Contact your governor and other elected representatives to ask them to make sure any National Prayer Day&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-04-30T16:12:20+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con","name":"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-04-30T16:12:20+00:00","dateModified":"2008-04-30T16:12:20+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/04\/muslims-jews-atheists-cite-con#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Muslims, Jews, Atheists Cite Concerns About National Day of Prayer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}