The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging Sweet Home, Ore., Mayor Susan Coleman to rescind a proclamation that blatantly elevates Christianity over all other religions.
A concerned Sweet Home resident has informed the state/church watchdog that Coleman has proclaimed May 1 as an official day of prayer for the city of Sweet Home. The proclamation states, in part:
[T]hroughout America’s history we have poured out prayers to the God of hope; in times of crisis and in celebration, in prosperity and in need, in times of war and in peace we have poured out praise to God for all He is, thanks to God for all He has done, confession and pleas for forgiveness when we have parted from His Word and will, and poured out intercession asking for His heart and hand to move for the sake of our neighbors and nation, and our history is filled with His grace, goodness, and abundant answers to those prayers [ . . . ]
I commend this observance to our citizens and request that prayers be poured out for our City.
FFRF is insisting that Coleman respect the secular U.S. Constitution by withdrawing the proclamation.
“The 2025 National Prayer for America is explicitly Christian, as your own proclamation makes clear,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes. “It directly references God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.”
As the proclamation acknowledges, the National Day of Prayer is a sectarian event, originating with Rev. Billy Graham during his evangelical crusade in Washington, D.C., in 1952. He expressed an openly Christian purpose, seeking an annual prayer proclamation by the president because he wanted “the Lord Jesus Christ” to be recognized across the land.
The First Amendment requires that the government remain neutral between religion and nonreligion, and may not favor one religion over all other faiths. By issuing an official National Day of Prayer proclamation, Coleman abridges her duty as mayor to remain neutral, FFRF points out. Whether to pray, and whether to believe in a god who answers prayer, is an intensely personal decision protected under the First Amendment as a matter of conscience. The government has no business telling people which god to pray to or that they must pray at all. This proclamation displays clear government favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity over all other faiths.
The separation between state and church is one of the most fundamental principles of the U.S. government. Even if the National Day of Prayer were designed to be inclusive of non-Christians, which it is not, it needlessly marginalizes and excludes residents, such as FFRF’s complainant, who are among the nearly 30 percent of adult Americans religiously unaffiliated, as well as the additional 6 percent of Americans adhering to non-Christian faiths.
As the city’s highest elected official, Coleman is charged with great responsibility and has been given significant trust by the people of Sweet Home, including those who may not share her personal religious viewpoint. Her constituents elected her to lead the city of Sweet Home, not promote her personal religion. The office of mayor belongs to “We the people,” not the office’s temporary occupant. The mayor’s office and city of Sweet Home have a constitutional obligation to religious neutrality, and as a matter of policy, officially supporting the National Day of Prayer is inappropriate and unnecessary.
“Mayor Coleman’s proclamation shows blatant disrespect for all non-Christians in Sweet Home,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Citizens in America deserve better than to feel like second-class citizens simply because they do not share the same beliefs as their elected officials.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 42,000 members, including more than 1,200 members in Oregon. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
