The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the government in order to find out whether Patriot Act provisions have been used to violate Americans’ constitutional freedom. But it didn’t have to be this way. Had Barack Obama followed federal law upon his inauguration and submitted nominations to fill the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, the board would have made the determination without the need for a court case to press the point. The Board has the statutory task of compiling data regarding the government’s use of its powers against Americans and regularly reporting to Congress and the public on the extent of constitutional compliance by the President and his executive branch.

But Barack Obama has not followed federal law. He has violated it by going 478 days in office without nominating a single person to sit on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The work of that board is therefore going undone; the board does not exist.

No, the president just hasn’t had the time to fill this board. He has had the time to declare a National Day of Prayer, though, asking Americans “give thanks for the many blessings God has bestowed upon our Nation” and “asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us.”

Should we pray that God will staff the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board? Will that do the trick?

Barack Obama, rather than respecting the Constitution, has gone ahead and issued a proclamation declaring today to be a religious holiday. Religions, apparently, cannot manage to survive on their own without the help of big government. Their supernatural deities seem to be too weak to get along without a little welfare.

But, if today is going to be a National Day of Prayer, then we ought not merely to engage in shallow cheerleading for prayer. Instead, let’s take note of some of the negative of the aspects of prayer, too.

Let’s note that the supposedly national day is only for a minority, even of religious Americans. In a recent survey, 68.4 of religious Americans said that prayer is not part of their form of religious observance.

Let’s take note of the way that, in his proclamation, President Obama has ignored the wisdom of Mark Twain’s story, The War Prayer, instructing Americans to “pray for the safety and success of those who have left home to serve in our Armed Forces”. Safety is one thing, but “success” includes an awful lot of bombs and bullets.

Let’s also take note of the profound, repeated failure of prayer.

- A prayer by John Adams didn’t bring the “virtuous liberty” he prayed for.
- Governor Sonny Perdue’s prayers didn’t bring needed rain for Georgia.
- Prayer didn’t help medical patients in a scientific study – the prayed for actually had worse outcomes than those who were left alone.

And for a recent failure of prayer reminder, we need only look to the first days of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, when the big news channels were full of stories about how people were praying to help the missing 11 workers from the exploded oil rig. Prayer didn’t save those 11 workers, did it?

To those who will pray today because of the National Day of Prayer: Go ahead. It’s your right to pray. Do whatever religious rituals you want. However, when you use your religion’s political power to coerce the government into propping up your ritual of prayer, then you ought to expect an especially harsh form of scrutiny. Why don’t you pray on that some?

The Supreme Court of the United States is set to hear arguments in a case today concerning whether a Christian student group with chapter all around the country has the right to claim financial benefits while engaging in membership discrimination, excluding anyone who refuses to accept a particular, narrow version of Christian belief. The organization, the Christian Legal Society, asserts that its statement of faith includes the belief that any sex outside of marriage, and any sex not between a man and a woman, is immoral. Many Christians do not hold that belief, and so the Christian Legal Society has ended up excluding Christians as well as non-Christians from its voting membership.

I am not a lawyer or a law student, and so I don’t feel well qualified to make a legal argument against the Christian Legal Society’s justifications for its religious discrimination. However, as a human being I feel perfectly qualified to comment on the moral character of the organization.

When I read of this Supreme Court case this morning, I was reminded of another organization that requires people to sign a statement of faith – the National Day of Prayer Task Force. It strikes me as an especially insecure act to require people to sign their names to these statements, an insecurity based upon a terror that there might be secret conspiracies of people to… to… disagree.

This kind of behavior is especially disturbing when observed among students who seek to become lawyers. The members of the Christian Legal Society are willing to suspend all rational standards of evidence in order to have faith that their particular religious creed is the correct one, but they can’t summon faith in each other. They have so little faith in each other that they rely on signatures to their Statement of Faith as if they’re some sort of legal contract of religious righteousness.

The University of Idaho’s chapter of the Christian Legal Society reveals the depths of this insecurity in a brief it has filed in the case. The brief frets that even signatures on the Statement of Faith may not be enough to keep out malicious disagreement about religious belief. It warns that additional measures to ensure orthodoxy may be necessary because the Statement of Faith “is not foolproof, for one may sign the statement without sincerity.”

I wouldn’t want somebody with such a paranoid, intolerant perspective representing me in the courtroom. Being a good lawyer requires the ability to perceive other people’s points of view. It requires mental flexibility and an exposure to a wide variety of opinions in free and open debate. Law students who cloister themselves away like medieval monks, in fear that they might encounter religious heresy, may learn to operate well inside the narrow confines of their own company, but will be unprepared to meet demands of our diverse general society.

Last year, under the direction of an act of Congress, Barack Obama issued a proclamation creating an official U.S. federal government religious holiday, the National Day of Prayer. In the proclamation, President Obama described this new religious holiday as an expression of a “spirit of unity”. Is it?

As Barack Obama is preparing to issue a new declaration supporting the National Day of Prayer, despite a U.S. District Court ruling that the government-created religious holiday is unconstitutional, it’s worth noting that increasing numbers of Americans reject religion. As of 2008, one quarter of Americans are non-Christian, and at least 15 percent of Americans live completely without religion of any kind.

That’s a fact worth noting given that the >largest organization promoting the National Day of Prayer is an exclusively Christian organization operated by the wife of right wing Christian preacher James Dobson. This organization, the National Day of Prayer Task Force, has gained almost complete control over the congressionally-established religious holiday, though the Task Force is not itself a government institution.

The huge majority of National Day of Prayer activities are organized and promoted through the National Day of Prayer Task Force, which has created a seven-point agenda for National Day of Prayer events that purposefully attempts to meld religion and government. The organization is exclusively Christian, but its religious agenda doesn’t end there.

The National Day of Prayer Task Force compels all its volunteers to sign a religious loyalty oath that binds them to allow only Christians to lead National Day of Prayer activities. That loyalty oath also requires volunteers to agree to a particular form of Christianity: A Christianity that declares that the Bible is literally true, without error, while other religions are false paths that cannot lead to salvation. This loyalty oath reads:

“I believe that the Holy Bible is the inerrant Word of The Living God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only One by which I can obtain salvation and have an ongoing relationship with God. I believe in the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, the atoning work of his shed blood, his resurrection and ascension, his intercession and his coming return to power and glory. I believe that those who follow Jesus are family and there should be unity among all who claim his name.”

Just in case there is any uncertainty about the exclusively Christian work of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, the Task Force also requires all of its volunteers to agree to the following statement:

“I agree to utilize and follow copyright usage of the NDP Task Force promotional materials to 1) perpetuate the annual theme and national media opportunities and 2) ensure a strong, consistent Christian message throughout the nation. I commit that NDP activities I serve with will be conducted solely by Christians while those with differing beliefs are welcome to attend.”

President Obama’s pledge of a religious holiday that will exhibit a “spirit of unity” has clearly not come to pass. The National Day of Prayer is being used to promote division and disrespect, even within Christianity.

In practice as well as in its original legal foundations, the National Day of Prayer is a clear example of the problems that result when the separation of Church and State is broken down by politicians like Barack Obama who seek to enhance their popularity with religious activists. The National Day of Prayer Task Force uses the power of the federal government to exclude and attack Americans that don’t share its narrow set of religious beliefs, violating the promise of our nation’s motto: E pluribus unum.

So the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. So what? Isn’t a violation of the Constitution justified, if it results in some positive consequences?

Even if you’re willing to accept the moral argument that the end justifies the means, you have to prove that the results of the National Day of Prayer are positive. Let’s look at one particular National Day of Prayer event to see if that’s truly the case.

Down in Rogers, Arkansas the National Day of Prayer is being observed with a “Mayors Prayer Breakfast” at the Church at Pinnacle Hills, a Southern Baptist Christian church. It’s a chance for the people of Rogers, Arkansas to meet with their Mayor, and discuss their needs… if they’re willing to pay the price.

You see, you can’t just walk in the door of that church and join in this National Day of Prayer celebration. No, you’ll have to give money to the church in order to have access to the mayor. How can you make a payment for this political access? Tickets for the Mayors Prayer Breakfast are available at the office of the Rogers Chamber of Commerce, an organization representing the community’s businesses.

Through this National Day of Prayer event, the local government of Rogers is being placed inside a closed room, and it’s religious and business groups that decide who is allowed to enter. Through the National Day of Prayer, the Church at Pinnacle Hills is being given special control over access to a powerful government official, and is using that control to demand money from citizens. It’s a profoundly corrupt arrangement.

The arrangement is revealed as even more corrupt when one considers that the Church at Pinnacle Hills is only one of between 20 and 40 churches in Rogers, Arkansas. the Church at Pinnacle Hills isn’t even the only Baptist church in the town. Through his participation in the Mayors Breakfast National Day of Prayer event, the mayor of Rogers, Arkansas is choosing one particular church to elevate above all the other churches in Rogers. He’s using his governmental power to bring money to that church, and that church only.

Even if you’re willing to accept the diminished moral vision that the end justifies the means, the end consequence of the National Day of Prayer seems to be corrupt and unworthy in itself.

The First Amendment’s separation of Church and State was created in order to avoid the inequality inherent in government intrusion into private decisions about religion. When government takes sides in disagreements about religion, bad things start to take place: Religious discrimination, religious wars, religious torture, religious execution. These aren’t just theoretical possibilities. They’re all a part of the history of the American colonies against which the founders of the United States of America were reacting.

The First Amendment to the Constitution sets a very clear standard that forbids religious government activities: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Given that laws passed by Congress fund everything that the government does, the amendment means that the government cannot participate in religious activities.

Of course, the federal government has a history of engaging in religious activities anyway. The reason is plain: Crass political advantage. For much of American history, religious groups have been dominant in society, and their votes have been earned by politicians who pander to their pride. Politicians have learned that they can gain lots of campaign money and grassroots organization facilitated by churches if they go along with efforts to create government religious ceremonies that elevate particular beliefs above others. Religious groups have been happy to become cogs in political machines in return for big government endorsements. Thus, when government and religion are mixed, both government and religion become corrupted.

Of course, the fact that these violations of the Constitution have become prevalent and popular tools for politicians doesn’t make them any less violations of the Constitution. That’s what U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled today about one particular platform for the corrupt mixing of Church and State: The National Day of Prayer.

The National Day of Prayer was created as a governmental event in response to the passage of a law by Congress recommending the establishment of the official government religious holiday. The law, Public Law 100-307, was passed in 1988, after an effort begun by pro-segregation Senator Strom Thurmond.

Such passage by Congress of a law to create a religious holiday is in itself clearly unconstitutional. However, the National Day of Prayer goes further. Rather than merely promoting religion in general, the government event promotes a particular form of religious ritual, and promotes particular forms of religion over other forms of religion.

President Barack Obama has not yet issued an official Presidential Proclamation establishing the National Day of Prayer this year, although the White House has indicated that such a proclamation will soon be issued, without regard to today’s ruling. An examination of Obama’s National Day of Prayer last year makes it clear, however, that the government holy day is conducted only for the benefit of certain religious traditions – those religions that involve prayer to the particular deity known as “God”. The Proclamation particularly urged religious worship of God – not Allah, not Vishnu, nor any goddess or other deity but the Jewish/Christian “God”.

“I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 7, 2009, as a National Day of Prayer. I call upon Americans to pray in thanksgiving for our freedoms and blessings and to ask for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection for this land that we love.”

This government establishment of religion excludes large number of Americans. According to the latest American Religious Identification Survey, only 70 percent of the American population report a belief in the deity “God”. The percentage of Americans who choose to live without religion is between 13 and 15 percent.

Tea Party protesters have been making a lot of noise about the threat of socialism. They say that they’re worried about the government intruding into Americans’ private decisions. Yet, when it comes to the case of the National Day of Prayer, Tea Party organizations have been remarkably silent. The federal government has unconstitutionally moved toward creating a state religion, a clear form of socialism. However, it seems that religious socialism is something that Tea Party activists are more than happy to accept.