Secular View: National Day of Prayer

A statement from Thaddeus of Nashville's Secular Life to The Tennessean on today's National Day of Prayer:

It is not, nor has it ever been, our government's place to encourage religious practices whether they be prayer, baptism, snake handling, or animal sacrifice.


Our government was established as a secular government with a wall of separation between our government and the encouragement of religious practices. This is not just a Secular's opinion but the opinion of the latest US Circuit Court ruling and our constitution.


Just as protestant whites used to find it easy and acceptable to claim that America was a "white protestant nation" to the detriment of other races and minorities, so too do the religious of this country now pretend that they can claim we are a praying nation... we are not, the non-religious are a very significant and growing segment of this nation and we should no more be asked by our government to honor a day of prayer than a Christian should be asked by the government to honor a Wiccan ritual.

What's that I hear? Silence - from those who usually are quite loud in their opposition against BIG GOVERNMENT interfering in their lives. As President Obama said about the National Day of Prayer (and I'm paraphrasing), I pray every day, sometimes several times a day. That said. he apparently doesn't need to make a big "look at me praying" day.