The contest is ongoing until we can persuade governmental bodies to pray on their own time and dime or the Supreme Court overturns the infamous Town of Greece v. Galloway ruling.
So get out there and give your local government a piece of your secular mind! Read the contest rules below.
View Nothing Fails Like Prayer winners here.
It's time to show our government that official prayer is unconstitutional, pointless, divisive and offensive. The U.S. Supreme Court unwisely "blessed" sectarian blessings by city and county governments in its May 5, 2014, Town of Greece v. Galloway decision.
If the Supreme Court won't uphold our godless and entirely secular Constitution — adopted at a prayerless constitutional convention — it's up to us. It's up to you!
Although the Greece decision is a blow to secularism and the rights of the nonreligious, Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the decision did include reasoning that acknowledges the right of an atheist to give the invocation:
"The town at no point excluded or denied an opportunity to a would-be prayer giver. Its leaders maintained that a minister or layperson of any persuasion, including an atheist, could give the invocation." Town of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway, 12-696, 2014 WL 1757828 (U.S. May 5, 2014).
To foster the groundswell of protest against government prayer, FFRF announces the creation of its newest activism award: The Nothing Fails Like Prayer Award. The award will be given for the best secular "invocation" at a government meeting. The annual winner or winners will receive a commemorative plaque, $500 and will be invited to deliver the invocation at FFRF's annual convention. Be a Paine in the government's Mass — a Thomas Paine.
All eligible entries will receive a commemorative certificate. FFRF will post eligible video entries of the secular invocation at its website and/or reprint it in FFRF's newspaper, Freethought Today. We'd like to see secular citizens flood government meetings with secular invocations that illustrate why government prayers are unnecessary, ineffective, embarrassing, exclusionary, divisive or just plain silly. The more citizens that protest prayers, the more likely government prayers will stop.
Annual Prize
The individual or individuals judged to give the "best" secular invocation will be invited to open FFRF's annual convention with the "invocation," receiving an all-expenses-paid trip to FFRF's annual convention, a plaque and an honorarium of $500.
FFRF plans to make the contest an annual event until the Greece decision is overturned.