News and Notes: Day of Reason

By George Francis Kane

Gathering at the State Capitol in May to celebrate the Day of Reason is one of the favorite traditions of Minnesota’s freethought community, probably surpassed only by the Winter Solstice party and picnics in the summer.

The National Day of Reason arose as a display of opposition to the National Day of Prayer, which is annually declared in accordance with a 1952 law. The Day of Prayer declaration is blatant government promotion of the Christian religion, but the courts have rejected Establishment Clause challenges for lack of standing. This reasoning holds that only the president can claim to be harmed by the law because it orders only him to do anything — to issue each year a proclamation declaring the Day of Prayer observance on the first Thursday in May. Even if some president were ever inclined to dispense with the proclamation, proceeding with such a suit would be political suicide.

Since a direct Establishment Clause challenge was foreclosed, in 2003 the American Humanist Association proposed a National Day of Reason as a counter-observance. Official support for the concept has been developing slowly. A resolution calling for a Day of Reason proclamation was sponsored by Rep. Pete Stark in 2011, and others have been proposed several times since. This year, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), on behalf of the Congressional Secular Caucus, introduced a resolution to officially designate an annual National Day of Reason on May 4, ending the intentional conflict with the National Day of Prayer. The resolution encouraged all Americans to focus “on the central importance of reason… to resolving social problems and promoting the welfare of humankind.”

The featured event nationally was the Congressional Reason Reception Wednesday evening, produced by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the American Humanist Association and the Secular Coalition of America. The Secular Freethought Caucus has been around for 6 years now, and has 22 members, all Democrats, and all in the House.

Minnesota Atheists in 2006 began an annual noon observance of the Day of Reason in the Capitol Rotunda. It typically featured a series of speakers from local secularist organizations, and recognition of all legislators who stopped by. We were always greatly outnumbered by Christians on the Capitol steps outside who were celebrating the Day of Prayer, but we frequently were on a par with them in media coverage that we received. Both groups had to rearrange their events due to the restoration work at the Capitol and then the event restrictions enacted to contain the Covid pandemic.

I was surprised that this year there was no Day of Prayer event at the State Capitol. There were about 30 gatherings around the state, but none closer to the Twin Cities than Chanhassen and Eden Prairie. The national main event was no longer a massive production in Washington DC, but an online gathering held at the Christian Cultural Center in New York called the “National Prayer Gathering.”

Minnesota Atheists did not resume it’s Day of Reason speakers, in part because the Rotunda is no longer available during the noon hour. Also, there is now a larger event in the morning, a breakfast in the Capitol’s basement, sponsored by the Twin Cities’ three Humanist organizations, the First Unitarian Society, Or Emet and Humanists MN. The featured speakers at that breakfast were Deepinder Singh Mayell, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and Ron Millar, Political Action Committee coordinator for the American Humanist Association’s Center for Freethought Equality. Filling out the event were cameo speeches by members of the Minnesota Secular Government Caucus who dropped by and representatives of participating organizations, who staffed tables in the room. Director-at-Large Heather Hegi represented Minnesota Atheists.

Among the groups represented was the Grand Rapids Area Freethinkers. Members recently learned that the new Itasca County Jail has the Ten Commandments painted on a wall in its gym. They contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which was also in attendance, to initiate a suit to force the display to be removed because it violates the Establishment Clause. Two weeks after the Day of Reason breakfast Itasca County agreed to paint over all religious texts at the jail.

For the first time, the Minnesota legislature proclaimed the Day of Reason, passing a resolution sponsored by Rep. Mike Freiberg. The Secular Government Caucus now numbers 16 Senators and 11 Representatives. Its major bills currently before this legislature include the Minnesota Recovery Options Act and the Minnesota End-of-Life Options Act. They are proceeding through committee approvals, but both will probably need to be re-introduced next year.