Defiance tinged National Day of Prayer gatherings Thursday as participants decried a court ruling last month that the annual event is unconstitutional.
t a breakfast here, committee chair Marj Mokry welcomed 250 people with a prayer of thanks "for the freedom to gather in prayer." Yolanda Fields, 29, director of Breakthrough Urban Ministries, said the court ruling "feels pretty bad, because this country was founded on prayer."
On the steps of the Stearns County Courthouse in St. Cloud, Minn., Mark Johnson, a senior pastor at Jubilee Worship Center, told about 200 people, "We should not take it for granted, this opportunity we have, because the National Day of Prayer is under attack."
U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled April 15 that the National Day of Prayer, created by Congress in 1952, amounts to a call for religious action. Enforcement is suspended pending an appeal by the Justice Department. The case was initiated by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Madison, Wis., group that argues the events violate the separation of church and state.
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The National Day of Prayer "is totally unconstitutional and it's un-American," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, a co-president of the foundation. Proponents use the annual events "to unite religion and government," she said.
Dozens of people attended an anti-day of prayer rally on the steps of the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison. Signs included "Obama cannot tell me to pray" and "Nothing fails like prayer."
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll found that 57% of Americans favored having a National Day of Prayer, 5% opposed it and 38% said it doesn't matter. The poll taken May 1-2 had an error magin of +/- 5 percentage points.
Emily Jones was among 150 people at a prayer breakfast in Prattville, Ala. "During these times we need more prayer, not less," she said. "No one at city hall is ordering us to come down here and pray."the strings of the lingering heart
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