Source: Only 'Pro-Life' White House Officials Invited to Prayer Day Event
Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson scolded the White House for neglecting to send a representative to yesterday's National Day of Prayer event at the Capitol, but a source familiar with the situation said the Obama team didn't have much of a chance. That's because the event organizers stipulated that the White House representative had to be opposed to abortion rights, according to this source.
"The administration's representative had to be pro-life," says the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Nobody else was allowed to go."
National Day of Prayer Task Force Marketing and Media Manager Becky Armstrong declined to comment on the report. An E-mail message sent yesterday to Focus on the Family's vice president for media relations, Gary Schneeberger, went unreturned. The prayer day task force operates out of Focus's Colorado Springs headquarters and is chaired by Shirley Dobson, the wife of the Focus founder.
"There are tens of millions of people praying across this country—40,000 prayer events taking place today," James Dobson told reporters yesterday on Capitol Hill. "And yet for the first time since 1993, the White House did not even send a representative of the Cabinet to the National Day of Prayer."
According to a statement released last week by the prayer day task force, it specifically asked the administration to send a representative to the Capitol event.
But the well-placed source said the only Obama cabinet secretary to receive an invite to yesterday's event was Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, an anti-abortion rights Republican. LaHood did not attend the event.
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Tags: religion | Obama administration
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National Day of Prayer
DL of NC said all that needs saying. This so called National Day of prayer should be eliminated completely and at once. Those awful "Prayer Breakfasts' also; they are nothing but opportunities for holier than thou "Christians" to show off, and should offend everyone who truly believes the teachings of Jesus.
Prayer
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
National Day of Prayer
Nothing can stop anyone from praying at anytime to whatever imaginary cloud-minder they happen to be deluded about. This is a pronounced manifestation of christian persecution syndrome, and is just as bereft of any meaning, at all, as the "War on Christmas". Christ, I cannot wait for Dobson and the rest of the mullahs in this country to shuffle off this mortal coil.
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