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to Push its Agenda |
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Compiled By GayToday
In 1952 Congress passed a federal law requiring an annual observance of a national day of prayer. In 1988, at the behest of the Religious Right, the date of the event was officially set by Congress as the first Thursday in May. Since then, control of the observance, intended to be broadly ecumenical, has been effectively taken over by the Religious Right. The National Day of Prayer Task Force, a nonprofit private group headed by Shirley Dobson, wife of Religious Right broadcaster James Dobson, coordinates virtually all of the prayer day events in Washington, D.C., and around the country. The NDP Task Force operates from the headquarters of Dobson's Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs, Colo. As expected, the Task Force's events reflect a fundamentalist Christian view of the world and advance the claim that America is a Christian nation. Despite this narrow religious approach, President Bush is actively assisting the Dobson crusade. According to a May 2 Focus on the Family fax newsletter, White House liaison Tim Goeglin says National Day of Prayer events in Washington, D.C., will be hosted by Bush. In his April 30 National Day of Prayer proclamation Bush adopted the Task Force theme of "One Nation Under God" as his own. He even quoted from a special prayer written for the Task Force by evangelist Billy Graham. The Bush actions have won the president support from James Dobson, an influential figure in the Religious Right whose broadcasting empire has an annual budget of over $120 million and millions of followers. According to World magazine, an evangelical publication, Dobson said he is "very encouraged" by the Bush administration's early record, particularly the president's assistance to Dobson's wife Shirley on the prayer day activities.
Lynn also pointed out that key Founders such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson thought presidential prayer day proclamations were violations of the constitutional separation of church and state. Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," said such proclamations are inappropriate. "They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion," Madison wrote in a document referred to as the "Detached Memoranda." Jefferson, a leading visionary on religious liberty, made a similar argument, writing to the Rev. Samuel Miller in 1808, "Fasting and prayer are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the time for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and right can never be safer than in their hands, where the Constitution has deposited it."
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James Dobson: Leading Focus on the Family's agenda with a little help from W 