Anti-Religious Freedom Ruling

Activist Judge Rules National Day of Prayer Unconstitutional!

Last week a federal judge in Wisconsin demonstrated just how important judicial appointments are to the preservation of our basic liberties when he ruled that a federal statute that sets a day for the National Day of Prayer violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Since it was established by Congress in 1952, the National Day of Prayer has provided an opportunity for all Americans to voluntarily pray for our nation according to their own faith. But the Freedom From Religion Foundation claimed that the National Day of Prayer creates a “hostile environment” for nonbelievers and filed the lawsuit to abolish this religious event.

Illinois Family Institute is joining with the Alliance Defense Fund in urging the Obama administration to appeal this ruling that not only undermines the National Day of Prayer, but the underlying heritage and tradition of the American people that dates back to our nation’s founding.

We need you to take action today:

1. Sign the petition to President Obama to urge him to appeal the court’s decision that strikes down the National Day of Prayer statute – before the appeal deadline of June 15 – at www.savethendop.org
2. Forward this email to your friends and spread the word.
3. Pray for the National Day of Prayer.

Also, in view of this slap in the face to the role and value of religion in our Country, will you take a minute to send an email to your minister encouraging him to encourage the congregation to be good stewards of the liberties we have in America? President Ronald Reagan once warned:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Every day different segments of society — from farmers to doctors, from Planned Parenthood to Gun Owners of America, from Teachers’ Unions to School Choice proponents and all points in between — are at the Capitol in Springfield bearing “witness” to our legislators, letting them know that “they” are a part of this state and are affected by and care about what our state government leaders are doing. The witness of the church has been silent for too long and, to be honest, the most effective witness on behalf of the church is the presence of ministers because they represent more than just themselves.

Groups that push for the kinds of decision rendered yesterday have risen and grown strong because of the absence of the influence of the Church when it comes to what is going on in the halls of government and in our courtrooms. Martin Luther King said it this way, “If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”