FRC Delivers 62,000 Petitions Urging Mayor Bloomberg to Allow Clergy, Prayer, First Responders at 9/11 Memorial Ceremony

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Sep 08, 2011, 12:21 ET

WASHINGTON, Sept. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Family Research Council Senior Legal Fellow Cathy Ruse, J.D., joined New York City Councilman Fernando Cabrera on the steps of New York City's City Hall at Noon Eastern today to deliver over 62,000 petitions urging New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to allow first responders and clergy to participate in this year's 9/11 memorial ceremony.

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Cathy Ruse made the following comments:

"The decision to ban pastors, prayer and first responders from the official commemoration of 9/11 at Ground Zero is, as Councilman Cabrera shrewdly observed, 'hollow and strange.'

"When our country was attacked, Americans didn't say: 'Oh, Great Politicians, please hold a press conference!' No, they turned to God for help and solace. It was and is their natural response to a great tragedy.

"Banning religion from the memorial of this tragedy is, in fact, unnatural for America, and for Americans. It's hollow and strange. It feels like an attempt to scrub the history books of the importance that God and faith played on that day and afterwards, and even to rewrite our long-cherished tradition as a nation of elected officials including clergy and invoking God at every point of crisis.

"This nation needs prayer more than politics. Please, Mr. Mayor, allow clergy and prayer at this ceremony."

Click here to read the full text of her remarks: http://www.frc.org/testimony/remarks-of-cathy-ruse-senior-fellow-for-legal-studies.

SOURCE Family Research Council