ICC Note: The atheist activist group Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently issued a plea to President-elect Donald Trump urging him to remove various elements of Christianity from his upcoming inauguration. In addition to requesting the removal of the prayer portion from the ceremony, the group also requested that he remove the words “so help me God” from the traditional inaugural oath. It is unknown whether President-elect Trump intends to respond to the group’s demands or not.
By Heather Clark
01/04/2016 United States (Christian News Network) – A prominent professing atheist organization is asking President-elect Donald Trump to keep God out of this month’s inaugural ceremony by removing the Bible, prayer and the “so help me God” phrase of the oath from the event.
The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently sent a letter to Trump to urge him to change his plans for the inauguration. It asserted that the Constitution is secular in nature and “contains no directive to swear to a deity or to place a hand on a Bible.”
“The ‘so help me God’ tradition violates the spirit of our secular Constitution in the very act of promising to uphold it. The Constitution prohibits rather than mandates religious oaths,” the group asserted. “In its altered, religious form, the oath has become a symbol of the disregard many in our nation have shown for our secular constitutional principles. Reciting the presidential oath in its original form would be an important symbolic step toward divorcing American politics from religion.”
It also asked Trump to pull the prayer portion of the event, which, as previously reported, will feature Franklin Graham, prosperity preacher Paula White and others. Some spiritual leaders will read from Scripture at the inauguration, such as prominent Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Jewish rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
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