National Day of Prayer in the News

This ruling on NDP made the news on both National Public Radio and the Christian station I listen to. Apparently it's unconstitutional to urge Americans to pray. It violates separation of church and state, according to one federal judge. My take on it (if you read the actual proclamation) is that although it does not require anyone to participate, and tries to reach out to all people of faith and even non-believers, there is something of an inherent contradiction in citing the freedom to "not worship" in a document urging people to pray. It's strange that this kind of thing didn't come up with Pres. Bush, who held an "ecumenical service" at the White House for NDP, instead of just a proclamation, as Pres. Obama does. Maybe that's why all the federal judgeships that are up for debate now matter -- judges ought to have ideological independence so that true abuses of power can be checked. Pres. Bush's ideological system of removing US Attorneys drew some criticism at the end of his term of office, but probably not enough. We need to prevent judgeships from becoming bound to ideology, and judges come from the US attorney ranks, I am sure. Anyway, not to turn this into an anti-Bush rant, I think this ruling is not the end of the world, especially since the President intends to ignore it.