Judge Nixes 'National Prayer Day' But Obama Administration Will Fight to Protect Christian Right

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to reflect breaking news.

On Tax Day last week, a federal judge in Wisconsin overturned a 58-year infringement on Americans' constitutional rights. In her ruling, Judge Barbara B. Crabb wrote that the National Day of Prayer Proclamation violates the First Amendment.

The case, Freedom From Religion Foundation v Barack Obama & Robert Gibbs, was originally filed against George W. Bush in 2008. In the judgment, Crabb wrote that the National Day of Prayer "goes beyond mere 'acknowledgment' of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context. In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience." She continued by quoting a legal precedent: "When the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies nonadherents as outsiders, it encroaches upon the individual's decision about whether and how to worship."

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), said she was very happy with the judge's decision. According to Gaylor, the FFRF -- a Madison-based organization that promotes the separation between church and state and educates on atheism, agnosticism and nontheism -- decided to file the suit because it was a "good way to show the entanglement between private religion and government."

The National Day of Prayer has been rather entangled with private religion since its official roots in 1952, when the Rev. Billy Graham suggested it as the only way to bring Americans back to God. Members of Congress introduced a joint resolution for an annual prayer day, with one senator calling it a measure against "the corrosive forces of communism which seek simultaneously to destroy our democratic way of life and the faith in Almighty God on which it is based."

Until 1988, each president picked a date for the National Day of Prayer, but that year, Ronald Reagan amended the law so that it would be held each year on the first Thursday in May. While Reagan's proclamation made the prayer day seem universal and inclusive, saying all could pray in "his or her own manner" and including meditation alongside prayer, it also included a quote from Leviticus in the Christian Bible and references "God," indicating monotheism.

Though the prayer day is touted by supporters as a way for all Americans of all faiths to come together, critics believe it is nothing more than a Christian National Day of Prayer. It started with Billy Graham, moved onto Reagan and the culture warriors, and today it is managed mostly by the National Day of Prayer Task Force, an organization whose name makes it sound governmental, but which is actually entirely housed within Focus on the Family, a major actor in the Christian right's efforts to influence public policy.

According to Gaylor, the FFRF's research showed that in 2008, 30 state governors used the exact wording, Scripture verse or some version of the press release provided by the Task Force in their official proclamations. That same year, President Bush used the Task Force's language as his own National Day of Prayer Proclamation.

Judge Crabb, in her ruling, referenced the National Day of Prayer Task Force's open exclusion of non-Christian groups, particularly Muslims, at its events. And, like the FFRF, the judge saw that the National Day of Prayer generally seemed to exclude non-Christian, non-Abrahamic, non-messianic religions -- not to mention all other belief systems and worldviews, including atheism.

This led Crabb to rule that the National Day of Prayer violates the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."