For Immediate Release
Contact: Lori Lipman Brown, (202) 299-1091
Secular Coalition for America Responds to Sen. Jim DeMint's Resolution to Declare June 6th National Day of Prayer for the U.S. Armed Forces and their Mission
Appalled that DeMint Only Wants to Thank Troops Who Believe in a God
Washington, DC - June 6, 2007 - The Secular Coalition for America believes that Sen. Jim DeMint's (R-SC) proposal to declare today a National Day of Prayer for U.S. military personnel will further perpetuate the myth that the people who risk their lives in service to our nation uniformly share his religion.
DeMint has proposed that a prayer with references to God and Lord be read aloud in Congress every June 6. By proposing this, DeMint falsely assumes that all military personnel and their families believe in a god. DeMint did not take into consideration that almost one fifth of the military are nontheists.
"The Secular Coalition for America is appalled that Congress would only consider thanking those military personnel who believe in a god. If Senator DeMint really wanted Congress to set aside a day to thank our troops, he would have just suggested that, not a religious exercise," said Secular Coalition for America Director Lori Lipman Brown.
"Approximately 280,000 troops declare themselves military atheists. Therefore, this resolution ignores approximately 20 percent of the patriotic military personnel who defend our country every day."
Every person who serves our nation deserves our thanks.
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The Secular Coalition for America is the only organization in the nation whose primary purpose is lobbying Congress on behalf of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, and other nontheistic Americans. The coalition is the first and only cooperative venture of eight member organizations coming together to improve the political situation of a previously unrepresented constituency: the tens of millions of atheists and agnostics in the United States.