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The government shouldn’t be organizing prayer for America 250

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by Annie Laurie Gaylor, opinion contributor - 05/15/26 11:00 AM ET

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by Annie Laurie Gaylor, opinion contributor - 05/15/26 11:00 AM ET

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Linda Sarsour, an organizer with Next 250, touches a collection of murals hanging in the Lyceum Center in Hartford during a Next 250 event Wednesday, March 18. (Mark Mirko/Connecticut Public via Getty Images)

The White House is inexcusably busy encouraging prayer through multiple initiatives that breach the constitutional wall separating church and state.

It has launched an “America Prays” campaign as part of our country’s 250th celebration and is also turning May 17 into an all-day prayer fest on the National Mall.

Inviting “Americans to pray for our country and our people and rededicate ourselves as One Nation Under God” is one of the stated purposes of Freedom 250. It was announced in December by the White House as an offshoot of the congressionally enacted America 250, designated by Congress to celebrate our nation’s semi-quincentennial.

The May 17 prayer rally in Washington D.C is expected to feature scripture, testimony and prayer. Federal officials such as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Mark Rubio will join a series of Christian pastors, ministers and podcasters (plus one token rabbi). Speakers, military bands and private religious choirs will intermingle as if state and church were indeed officially united. “Miracles” will be one of the day’s major themes.

Americans don’t need the government’s help to pray. And we are not “one nation under God.” That phrase dates to a congressional act in 1954, during the Cold War, that tampered with the previously secular Pledge of Allegiance. In fact, America’s godless and entirely secular Constitution guarantees a government that doesn’t tell us which church to support, what religious rituals to engage in or what to believe or disbelieve.

The First Amendment protects religious freedom by drawing a clear line: Government may not establish religion, favor it, disfavor it or promote it. That principle is not incidental to our founding — it is foundational. It is what allows a nation as religiously diverse as ours to function at all. “America Prays” and the May 17 “National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving” betray that historical distinction.

When the federal government organizes and promotes religious observance, it is no longer neutral. It is using the machinery of the state to elevate religion itself and, in practice, a narrow slice of it.

In reality, nearly 1 in 3 Americans today identifies as religiously unaffiliated. Millions additionally practice minority faiths. We are patriotic, invested in the country’s future and deserving of equal standing. Yet presidential initiatives like this sideline nonbelievers and non-Christians.

History shows us exactly why the Founders rejected government involvement in religion. They had seen the consequences in both the Old and New Worlds: coercion, exclusion, persecution, bloodshed, wars and division. They forged a unique path — one in which belief or nonbelief is protected precisely because the government does not take sides.

That neutrality is the genius of the American system.

“America Prays” supporters may argue that it simply encourages a widely held tradition. But constitutional rights are not subject to majority preference. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment exists to protect minority viewpoints and to ensure that the government does not enmesh its civil powers with any religion.

The government should not be in the business of religion.

At 250 years, the U.S. has an opportunity to reaffirm what truly makes our nation exceptional. Not religious unity, which we have never had, but a secular Constitution that guarantees freedom of conscience for all. It’s encapsulated by the original motto E Pluribus Unum (From many, [come] one).

That includes the right to pray — and the equal right not to.

If a future administration launched a national campaign encouraging atheism, telling people there is no God to pray to and discouraging them from going to church, the constitutional problem would be obvious. The principle does not change depending on which belief system is being promoted.

If this anniversary is meant to celebrate American ideals, then let’s celebrate the principle that makes all the other ideals possible: a government that belongs to everyone — not just the religious.

Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. She co-founded FFRF in 1976 as a c