A national 'free exercise' of religion

It's a strange thing we've come to: People who don't pray holding protests and filing lawsuits against those who do pray, publicly. A federal judge has ruled that the National Day of Prayer, held Thursday, is unconstitutional. People who don't want to attend National Day of Prayer events, which are held in towns and cities across the country, are not required to. They can ignore the Prayer Day participants and go on about their business, just as people who don't like "Dancing With The Stars" can ignore it. It's hard to imagine how those who don't want to take part in the National Day of Prayer are harmed by the actions of those who do take part.

Imagine if people who oppose college athletics because these sporting events detract from the academic mission of colleges and universities — an entirely rational assertion — were to hold protests and try to prevent college sports fans from attending games or watching them on television.

I'll admit that I have only attended a handful of these National Days of Prayer over the past 30 years. These public displays of religious zeal often seemed shallow and insincere to me, but other people enjoyed and took inspiration from these events, so God bless 'em.

The plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit that now threatens the existence of a national prayer observance that has been around since the Truman administration are the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The gist of their argument, as I understand it, is that a National Day of Prayer endorsed by Congress and the president violates the First Amendment. That amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... ." (emphasis added) To claim that an non-sectarian, generic National Day of Prayer constitutes "an establishment of religion" is a stretch. It seems to me that a stronger argument can be made that prohibiting a National Day of Prayer would violated the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment. If the National Day of Prayer is struck down, those who wish to observe a nationwide observance of prayer would be denied that right.

Considering the fact that the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which proposed the Constitution and the First Amendment, opened its sessions with prayer, it would seem obvious that it was never the intent of the Founding Fathers to prohibit public prayer or a national prayer observance.