Conservatives are coming to the defense of FDR's D-Day prayer

FDR’s highly nonsectarian prayer that he read to listening millions on the radio on D-Day 70 years ago is not typically controversial. It was a broad appeal for the Almighty’s protection of America’s sons as they were to face German machine guns on French beaches. It also braced America for the terrible losses that would follow. Men would die, FDR clearly acknowledged without euphemism, and he prayed God would receive their souls.

For several years there have been legislative attempts to add this prayer in some way to the WWII Memorial on the National Mall. Last year, Senator Rob Portman renewed the initiative. Of late, apparently the idea is now rumbling within a U.S. House subcommittee. Who knows when and whether it will ever emerge, much less become law. But the mere possibility of FDR’s prayer at a national monument bestirred an odd coalition into public opposition.

“Our religious diversity is one of our nation’s great strengths,” the protesting coalition declared. “This bill, however, shows a lack of respect for this great diversity. It endorses the false notion that all veterans will be honored by a war memorial that includes a prayer that proponents characterize as reflecting our country’s ‘Judeo-Christian heritage and values.’”

Ostensibly FDR’s prayer on the National Mall will undermine “religious freedom” and “co-opt religion for political purposes, which harms the beliefs of everyone.” The group pleads on behalf of the reputedly nearly one third of current U.S. armed forces who are “non-Christian,” i.e. mostly religiously unaffiliated.

Will the average 20-year-old religiously unaffiliated soldier be offended by FDR’s prayer at a monument honoring his great-grandfather who served in WWII? Not likely. Polls show that most of the much ballyhooed religiously unaffiliated still believe in God and prayer, and many who don’t aren’t necessarily outraged by those who do.

Signers of this protest include several Jewish groups, the American Civil Liberties Union of course, a Hindu group, a Humanist group, a group for mostly liberal Protestants, and the United Methodist Church’s Capitol Hill lobby. They fault language in the legislation, which cites “Judeo-Christian heritage” and the “power of prayer,” words not from FDR. But they interestingly never quote from the ostensibly offending appeal from FDR. It would be clarifying if they had critiqued FDR’s words directly. But perhaps they held back, realizing they’d look silly.