Bill Text: GA SR1506 | 2009-2010 | Regular Session | Introduced

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Bill Title: National Day of Prayer; urging the appellate courts to uphold its constitutionality

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 5-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2010-04-21 - Senate Read and Referred [SR1506 Detail]

Download: Georgia-2009-SR1506-Introduced.html

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10 LC 28 5262

Senate Resolution 1506

By: Senators Hill of the 32nd, Shafer of the 48th, Butterworth of the 50th, Seabaugh of the 28th and Smith of the 52nd

A RESOLUTION

Affirming support for the National Day of Prayer and urging the appellate courts to uphold its constitutionality; and for other purposes.

WHEREAS, on April 15, 2010, United States District Judge Barbara Crabb in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of Prayer unconstitutional, saying the day amounts to a call for religious action and that the government can no more enact laws supporting a day of prayer than it can encourage citizens to fast during Ramadan, attend a synagogue, or practice magic; and

WHEREAS, President Barack Obama's administration has countered that the statute simply acknowledges the role of religion in the United States and Obama spokesman Matt Lehrich said in an e-mail to The Associated Press that the president still plans to issue a proclamation for the next prayer day; and

WHEREAS, the National Day of Prayer has great significance for us as a nation in that it enables us to recall and to teach the way in which our founding fathers sought the wisdom of God when faced with critical decisions and stands as a call to us to humbly come before God, seeking His guidance for our leaders and His grace upon us as a people; and

WHEREAS, at the Constitutional Convention in 1775, Benjamin Franklin urged that "prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business"; and

WHEREAS, beginning with George Washington, three of the four Founding Fathers who became president, George Washington, John Adams, and James Madison, proclaimed at least one National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, on January 1, 1795, George Washington issued a proclamation calling for a "day of public thanksgiving and prayer" on February 19 of the same year, declaring that "it is in an especial manner our duty as a people, with devout reverence and affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great obligations to Almighty God and to implore Him to continue and confirm the blessings we experience"; and

WHEREAS, John Adams issued two proclamations, in 1798 and 1799, calling the nation to days of "solemn humiliation, fasting, [and] prayer", acknowledging that "dependence on God" was essential for the "promotion of that morality and piety without which social happiness cannot exist nor the blessings of a free government be enjoyed"; and

WHEREAS, James Madison, the drafter of the First Amendment which contains the provisions of the Constitution protecting our religious freedoms, issued four proclamations calling the nation to a day of prayer; and

WHEREAS, because the nation was at war, President Madison asked the nation to set aside a day of "day of public humiliation and prayer" in the years 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815; and

WHEREAS, in the 1812 proclamation, Madison exhorted the nation to "render to the Sovereign of the Universe and the Benefactor of Mankind the public homage due to His holy attributes; of acknowledging the transgressions which might justly provoke the manifestations of His divine displeasure; of seeking His merciful forgiveness and His assistance in the great duties of repentance and amendment, and especially of offering fervent supplications that in the present season of calamity and war, He would take the American people under His peculiar care and protection; that He would guide their public councils, animate their patriotism, and bestow His blessing on their arms; that He would inspire all nations with a love of justice and of concord and with a reverence for the unerring precept of our holy religion to do to others as they would require that others should do to them; and, finally, that, turning the hearts of our enemies from the violence and injustice which sway their councils against us, He would hasten a restoration of the blessings of peace"; and

WHEREAS, on the same day that the House of Representatives endorsed the First Amendment and its Establishment Clause, it adopted a resolution commissioning several of its members to join several Senators to ask the President "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many signal favors of Almighty God"; and

WHEREAS, throughout our nation's history, American presidents have issued 164 proclamations calling the nation to prayer; and
WHEREAS, on November 12, 1935, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a day to "offer our devotions and our humble thanks to Almighty God and pray that the people of America will be guided by Him in helping their fellow men"; and

WHEREAS, on November 9, 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed a day to "give thanks for our preservation" and for "us [to] pray: Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; Amen" to be set apart on November 21, 1940; and

WHEREAS, there have been 57 Presidential Proclamations for a "National Day of Prayer," since 1952; and

WHEREAS, in 1952, President Harry S. Truman declared a National Day of Prayer and signed into law an annual observance to be proclaimed by the President; and

WHEREAS, on October 8, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed Proclamation 3559 - National Day of Prayer, 1963 and said "I ... do set aside and proclaim Wednesday, the sixteenth day of October 1963, as the National Day of Prayer. On this day, let us acknowledge anew our reliance upon the divine Providence which guided our founding fathers. Let each of us, according to his own custom and his own faith, give thanks to his Creator for the divine assistance which has nurtured the noble ideals in which this Nation was conceived"; and

WHEREAS, on January 25, 1988, Ronald Reagan signed into law Public Law 100-307, the designation of the first Thursday in May as the annual observance for the National Day of Prayer; and

WHEREAS, on February 3, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed Proclamation 5767 - National Day of Prayer, 1988 and said "Let us, young and old, join together, as did the First Continental Congress, in the first step– humble, heartfelt prayer. Let us do so for the love of God and His great goodness ..."; and

WHEREAS, in addition to the proclamation that the president signed last year, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day, all 50 state governors plus the governors of several U.S. territories signed similar proclamations; and

WHEREAS, last year, local, state, and federal observances were held from sunrise in Maine to sunset in Hawaii, uniting Americans from all socioeconomic, political, and ethnic backgrounds in prayer for our nation in which it is estimated that more than two million people attended more than 30,000 observances organized by approximately 40,000 volunteers and at which, at state capitols, county court houses, city halls, schools, businesses, churches, and homes, people stopped their activities and gathered for prayer; and

WHEREAS, because of the faith of many of our founding fathers, public prayer and national days of prayer have a long-standing and significant history in American tradition and the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the right of state legislatures to open their sessions with prayer in the case of Marsh v. Chambers in 1983; and

WHEREAS, in the case of Marsh v. Chambers, when deciding the constitutionality of allowing legislatures to open in prayer, the majority of opinion of the Supreme Court stated "To invoke Divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not, in these circumstances, an 'establishment' of religion or a step toward establishment; it is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country"; and

WHEREAS, in the majority opinion of the 1984 United States Supreme Court case of Lynch v. Donnelly, the majority stated that "[o]ur history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance in deliberations and pronouncements of the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders"; and

WHEREAS, we should continue to invoke divine guidance today for the leadership of our government in these trying times and should be encouraging more prayer and not inhibiting prayers.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE that the members of this body affirm their support for the National Day of Prayer and urge the appellate courts to reverse the decision of Judge Crabb in finding the proclamation of such day of prayer unconstitutional.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of the Senate is authorized and directed to transmit appropriate copies of this resolution to the public and the press.