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Obama urged to skip National Prayer Breakfast

by Rebecca Sager February 2, 2010

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has urged the President to not attend the National Prayer Breakfast, reports the Huffington Post:

“The National Prayer Breakfast uses the suggested imprimatur of the elected leaders who attend to give the Fellowship greater credibility and facilitate its networking and fundraising,” CREW director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. “The president and members of Congress should not legitimatize this cult-like group — the head of which has praised the organizing abilities of Hitler and Bin Laden — by attending the breakfast.”

The White House confirmed to the Huffington Post that Obama plans to attend the breakfast, scheduled for Thursday, but had no response to CREW’s letter. The Fellowship is closely connected to the now-notorious C Street House near the Capitol—essentially a dorm for ethically-troubled Republicans.

Obama has said he will attend the breakfast which has been ongoing since 1957.

Rebecca Sager

Rebecca Sager is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She has recently published work from her dissertation on state level "faith-based" practices including, Faith, Politics, and Power: The Politics of Faith-Based Initiatives (Oxford University Press, 2009), “The Cultural Construction of State Sponsored Religion: Race, Politics, and State Implementation of the Faith-Based Initiative” in The Journal of Church and State (2007), and “The Importance of Faith-Based Liaisons” in Sociology of Religion (2007). Rebecca is working on several research projects, including a new project looking at the role of evangelicals within the Democratic Party.

There are 2 comments 2 comments

Ruth Braunstein February 3, 2010 at 8:53 am

Interesting post, Rebecca. Also, at Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner discusses concerns by religious leaders that support for The Family’s National Prayer Breakfast will lend credibility to their “kill-the-gays bill pending in the Ugandan parliament.”

As more activists call attention to the activities of The Fellowship, or The Family, the secretive fundamentalist powerhouse whose National Prayer Breakfast (NPB) is this Thursday, a group of religious leaders has launched an alternative American Prayer Hour to condemn The Family’s role in the kill-the-gays bill pending in the Ugandan parliament.

[…]

President Obama is scheduled to speak at the NPB despite calls for him to boycott it. The religious leaders behind the American Prayer Hour are asking him to take the opportunity to speak out against homophobia and heterosexism, said Harry Knox, the Director of the Religion and Faith Program at the Human Rights Campaign, which is co-sponsoring the events. Knox is also a member of Obama’s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Advisory Council (and RD’s advisory council).

Alternative prayer hours are currently scheduled in 17 cities, according to Wayne Besen, executive director of Truth Wins Out, which is coordinating the event.

Read the full piece here. And see other coverage of The Family’s connections to Uganda’s anti-gay legislation here.
Nathan Schneider February 5, 2010 at 4:58 pm

A digest of Prayer Breakfast discussion also just went up at Killing the Buddha: “Breakfast with The Family.”

Obama urged to skip National Prayer Breakfast

Rebecca Sager

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