If Obama’s Lost the Secular Humanists …
Posted on | July 30, 2012 | 13 Comments
. . . this could be the last straw:
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is praying for drought relief in the midwest farmlands, but what he’s getting in return is criticism from environmentalists for not linking the dryness to climate change and from atheists for actually praying.
“I get on my knees everyday and I’m saying an extra prayer right now,” Vilsack said. “If I had a rain prayer or a rain dance I could do, I would do it.”
Vilsack’s comments were met with condemnation from Tom Flynn, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, who said the cabinet official should not be asking for divine intervention.
“It sends the wrong message to distraught farmers when the Agriculture secretary suggests that the best response is to pray,” Flynn said.
“For a cabinet official to recommend prayer as a solution or call attention to his own devotions may violate the Constitution’s prohibition against establishment of religion. Most important, though, is that prayer doesn’t work. But if you want to test the power of prayer yourself, consider this. Apparently Secretary Vilsack’s been praying for rain every day; how’s that working out?”
On the other hand, by alienating the Democrat Party’s crucial secular humanist constituency, Secretary Vilsack may have answered our prayers: “Please, dear God, not another four years of Obama!”

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