Happy National Day of Prayer!

All you religious conservatives have messed this country up! This is not what Jefferson and Adams intended!

A little heavy reading for today's National Day of Prayer, courtesy of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State (slightly edited by yours truly).

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NO GOVERNMENT ‘INTERMEDDLING’ WITH RELIGION!

Jefferson And Madison Opposed Government-Sponsored Prayer Proclamations

Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposed government-issued
religious proclamations. Both men were key architects of religious liberty in America, and both believed strongly that government should not meddle in religious matters. As president, Jefferson refused to issue proclamations calling for days of prayer. In a Jan. 23, 1808, letter to the Rev. Samuel Miller, he explained why. Here are some excerpts from that missive:

"I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises…. Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government…. I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of affecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it."

Madison, who succeeded Jefferson as president, also had concerns about religious proclamations. Although he issued prayer proclamations during the War of 1812 at the request of Congress, he later expressed regret for doing so. In an undated essay that scholars call “The Detached Memoranda,” (believed to have been written around 1817), Madison addressed the issue at length:

"Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed. Although recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers."

"The objections to them are:
1. That Governments ought not to interpose in relation to those subject to their authority
but in cases where they can do it with effect. An advisory Government is a contradiction
in terms.
2. The members of a Government as such can in no sense be regarded as possessing an
advisory trust from their Constituents in their religious capacities...
3. They seem to imply and certainly nourish the erroneous idea of a national religion...
4. The tendency of the practice, to narrow the recommendation to the standard of the
predominant sect...
5. The last & not the least objection is the liability of the practice to a subserviency to
political views; to the scandal of religion, as well as the increase of party animosities..."

Note: Some antiquated spellings and grammatical uses have been changed to modern
useage.
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Americans United is a religious liberty watchdog group based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, the organization educates Americans about the importance of church- state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. If you would like to learn more about religious liberty, please contact:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State
518 C Street N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002
Phone: (202)466-3234 Fax: (202)466-2587
e-mail: americansunited@au.org
website: www.au.org