Obama opposes prayer ruling

From Bob Allen, Associated Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (ABP) -- The U.S. Justice Department announced April 22 it would appeal a federal court ruling that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.

White House attorneys filed a notice of appeal in U.S. District Court for western Wisconsin challenging District Judge Barbara Crabb's April 15 ruling that in mandating a National Day of Prayer Congress violated the Constitution's Establishment Clause.

Advocates of the separation of church and state hailed the ruling in a lawsuit filed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, while those who read the First Amendment more narrowly decried it as an attack on religion. Richard Land of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention called it an "egregious and revealing decision" that he said "shows the brooding hostility toward religion that exists at some levels of federal, state and local government in this country."

The White House said previously that despite the ruling President Obama intends to recognize a National Day of Prayer, as every president has done since 1952, on May 6.