On the day President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, FFRF sent a letter to the president inviting him to attend and speak at the Reason Rally on June 4 at the Lincoln Memorial.
“It is laudable for the President to embrace citizens of all colors and religious viewpoints as being part of ‘one American family’ and to caution citizens not to be ‘bystanders to bigotry,’ ” wrote FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker in the letter to the president, sent out on Feb. 4. “But there is one U.S. minority that has been consistently excluded from such notice: nonreligious Americans. We respectfully invite you, in your final year in office, to do something no American president has ever done: reach out to secular America. Such attention from the Office of the President would demonstrate that freethinkers, atheists, agnostics, secular humanists and rationalists are accepted citizens.”
“By showing up on June 4 . . . and addressing nonbelieving Americans, you can send a signal that the marginalization of a quarter of the U.S. population is unacceptable,” the letter continues. “Please use your ‘bully pulpit’ to help erase harmful attitudes toward the nonreligious minority in the United States, as you have done for religious minorities. Please address the Reason Rally on June 4 or speak at our auditorium in Freethought Hall (our offices) any time. We look forward to your reply.”
