Don’t tread on me (or my prayer)

Last week, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb struck down the “National Day of Prayer” as unconstitutional.

And good for her for doing so.

Note that Judge Crabb did not say that prayer was unconstitutional, or that people gathering to pray was illegal, or that various religious groups could not get together and declare the first Thursday in May (or any other day or days, for that matter) a national day of prayer.

What Judge Crabb said in her decision was that the Federal Government couldn’t do so.

Unfortunately, § 119 cannot meet that test. It goes beyond mere “acknowledgment” of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience.

[…] Recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic. In fact, it is because the nature of prayer is so personal and can have such a powerful effect on a community that the government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual’s decision whether and when to pray.

(I want a National Day of Rune Magic.  That would be awesome …)

The current (1988) statute declares:

The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and meditation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

The problem here is that, while it says “may,” either this is an active encouragement (“Go! Turn! Pray and meditate!”) or it’s meaningless (would it make sense to include “or may not”?).  Given the history of the law — originally inspired by a Billy Graham revival in 1952 — it’s clearly meant to be a government encouragement to pray.  Which, really, I don’t understand why anyone, especially the faithful, would want the Feds sticking their noses into.

What’s remarkable (though sadly not unexpected) is that various religious and “conservative” individuals and groups on the Right are aghast at this ruling. You’d think Judge Crabb had just outlawed puppies.

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va) is leading the charge.  He told Focus on the Family:

The federal judge’s decision to call the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional represents a movement we are seeing across the country of a small minority who want to exclude faith, religion and morality from the marketplace of ideas.

[…] This federal judge has essentially said that the Declaration of Independence – a document that very clearly states that our rights were given by a Creator – is unconstitutional. Is there any question this judge would have declared the Declaration of Independence unconstitutional if it were written today, since it proclaims all our rights come from the Creator? It is regrettable that we would have a federal judge essentially rule against the very premise of the nation’s foundational document of freedom.

[…]  Unfortunately, this places us on a slippery slope where at the bottom, there is no prayer, there is no acknowledgment of our Creator, and there is no recognition of our nation’s spiritual heritage and its connection to American strength. It is important that we continue to affirm America’s spiritual heritage and reaffirm the ability of all Americans to pray for blessings on their lives and on our nation according to the dictates of their conscience.

Get that?  What Rep. Forbes is essentially saying is that Christianity and religion are doomed if the government doesn’t actively promote them.

Really? Truly?  I mean, religion (Christianity, as an example) has managed to hold on even in the face of active hostility from the government, let alone government neutrality.  Look at the Soviet Union, or today’s China.  And yet, somehow, religion in the US is so fragile, so weak and tottering that only if the Federal Government — you know, that Evil Centralized Socialist “Problem Not Solution” Government — is regularly proclaiming the wonders of Godliness and prayer (with a special emphasis on Jesus, of course), then Christianity will fail and we’ll no longer have any prayer in the US.

And people say religion in Europe is in trouble?

And since when did the halls of government become a key proxy for “the marketplace of ideas”?  If we can only discuss and promote “faith, religion, and morality” by doing so through Washington, our national religious life is in a lot more trouble than a “National Day of Prayer” is going to help.

Read through the decision.  It’s well-written, balanced, and hardly a paean to atheism.  Look at the history of the NDoP.  It’s not an historical appreciation or affirmation of “our nation’s spiritual heritage” — it’s an explicit call to prayer by the Federal Government.  You’d think a lot of folks on the Right would be aghast at state-sponsored religious decrees; instead, they’re as addicted to them as they claim others are addicted to welfare checks.

Oh, and Rep. Forbes — “the ability of all Americans to pray for blessings on their lives and on our nation according to the dictates of their conscience” is already available to all of us citizens who choose to exercise it.  I don’t need Congress’ encouragement, or the President’s proclamation, or a big fancy governmental breakfast meeting to exercise that ability.  And if I need a reminder of it, I’m sure my pastor will say something the preceding Sunday, or there will be plenty of proclamations and articles about it in the papers, magazines, TV and Internet.  Here, let me mark my calendar …

And, finally, that “Declaration of Independence” comment?  That’s just being silly, since the DoI wasn’t written today, and wasn’t passed by Congress as a promotion of there being a Creator.  Plus, it also called for rebellion against the existing government, which, yes, most likely would be considered illegal today, whether or not constitutional.

Meanwhile, the Family Research Council has gone even further off the deep end over the matter.

Yesterday, 223 years to the day after patriots ratified an end the Revolutionary War, a judge in Wisconsin ruled to reintroduce tyranny in America — this time, from the bench. In a decision that is rocking our nation to its very core, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb determined that a national day of prayer — a tradition as old as the country itself — is unconstitutional.

Astonishing — most people would say that preventing the government from outlining accepted religious practices is the opposite of “tyranny.”

Had Judge Crabb consulted the Constitution she was sworn to uphold, she might notice that Americans enjoy religious freedom–not by virtue of the courts, but in spite of them.

Actually, if the nameless FRC scribe of this piece had consulted Judge Crabb’s ruling, he or she might have noticed that the Constitution — and the Supreme Court and Federal Court case rulings about it — were extensively consulted.  And that the religious freedom we exercise today comes from the courts ensuring that the Constitution’s protection of those freedoms was adhered to, despite folks like the FRC who think their particular religious majority ought to prevail.

Furthermore, setting aside a day of corporate prayer is more than compatible with our nation’s heritage; it is a responsibility assigned to every American by George Washington himself. “It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God… and humbly implore His protection and favor; and whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer” (Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789).

George Washington also owned slaves.  I think we’d agree that not everything that George Washington did, or the Founders supported, or even the Constitution in 1789 was interpreted as meaning, are cast in stone as exemplars of national virtue to be forever followed, and not everything in our national heritage has the force of law. (The decision addresses this historical background starting on page 47.)

Contrary to Judge Crabb’s opinion, this ruling does not promote freedom, it crushes it. Americans pray voluntarily. And exercising that right together, as a willing nation, is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended. To imply otherwise is to suggest that the Constitution is unconstitutional!

I cannot unbend the illogic in these sentences, except to note that the decision here does not “crush” voluntary prayer, nor does it prevent every single person in the US (who is so inclined) from praying on the National Day of Prayer.  It just says that the government ought not, Constitutionally, be organizing and encouraging the activity.  Because, if nothing else, not everyone in the nation is “willing” to do so.

This judicial mutiny lies directly at the feet of the Left, including President Obama, who has created an atmosphere in which the Constitution is silly putty in the hands of liberal activists. Slowly but surely, he is making American soil more fertile for the radical redefinition of society. This cannot be tolerated. We must ensure that the President’s bench nominees have a reverence for the Constitution that this judge lacks.

Never mind that the case was actually filed (and decided) against Obama, who has said he will issue the required proclamation while the case is appealed.  That’s just cover, after all, since he’s an evil Marxist Atheist (when he’s not a Crypto-Muslim), and therefore must somehow be to blame.

It seems to me that Judge Crabb has plenty of reverence for the Constitution — more than the FRC does, since it seems to assume that it’s a Constitution for Christians, not America.

In the meantime, we call on Congress to start the impeachment proceedings for Barbara Crabb, as she violated of her sacred oath of “administering justice… under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Because you don’t agree with her (well-reasoned and well-documented) decision.  Right.  Heaven help us if judges can be impeached because the FRC disapproves of their decisions.

What she has done to repress, we will use to revive. What she meant to undermine prayer, we will use as the reason why it’s necessary. When the great men and women of our past bent their knees to God on behalf of the “sacred fire of liberty,” it was often during the nation’s darkest days. My friends, it is time we join them.

Cue “The Battle-Hymn of the Republic” …

At any rate, go ahead and pray, FRC.  You have the Constitutional Right to do so, thanks to the diligent activities of judges like Judge Crabb, who have kept others from pedding their majority in society as the One True (and Legally Enforced) Way.

Why does the FRC, or Rep. Forbes, or any of the others wearing sackcloth and ashes about this, think that religion can only survive if the government is constantly flogging it to the citizenry, that religion in general (and, let’s be honest, Christianity in particular) depends on government sponsorship for its very survival?

Joy Davidman wrote in Smoke on the Mountain in 1955, in a parallel context: “We hear of the life-and-death struggle between Christianity and Communism, the necessity of ‘keeping God alive as a social force’ — as if our Lord could not survive a Soviet victory! It is a poor sort of faith that imagines Christ defeated by anything men can do.”

It seems to me that the folks bemoaning this decision have less trust in the power of God, and of the “vital power” of religion in our society, than one would think they should.  Without the President (even this President) standing up once a year and waving around a flag and a cross, apparently we’re doomed to slide into the Slough of Secular Despond, and a defeated Christ will be powerless to do anything about it.

I like Obama as much as the next guy, but I really don’t need him to remind me to pray.  Why do they?