Metroplex Atheists
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National Day of Prayer Protest 2003

Once again, the National Day of Prayer Task Force, housed in the offices of James Dobson (who advocates a Christians-only political party) and led by his wife, organized events around the country where Evangelical Protestants try to show everyone how much lawmakers like their religion over the others. Needless to say, we didn't approve.

This year was a bit different from previous protests. NDOP organizers are encouraged to hold their events on government property (instead of, say, churches) whenever possible. In the past, they had been held in front of the old courthouse. The courthouse, however, has recently been converted into park & rec offices. Apparently this wasn't "government enough" for the NDOP folks, so they moved the event to the front of Dallas City Hall. City mayor Laura Miller, who's numbers were falling behind in the polls, suddenly decided that showing up personally was a good way to buy a few votes, so she showed up and endorsed the Christians-only event, despite the fact that she proclaims herself to be an observant Jew.

Here are a few pictures.

Vince, Chuck, and Randy carry their signage. Early on, we were shuttled away from the Dallas City Hall entrance to the outlying sidewalks. We were still an obvious presence there, though.

Vince asks folks to keep State and Church separate. Our reception this year was warmer than in past years, with many passers-by finding the entire NDOP event a distasteful thing and thanking us for showing up. Several city workers agreed with us that Miller's appearance was a pretty shallow attempt to court Christian voters.

These were the two questions that didn't get answered too well by the pray-ers. A couple of folks tried to convince us that Christianity does indeed deserve more breaks than the other religions, mainly because it's the only TRUE one!

This woman was just odd. She started by running up to Randy and speaking in tongues (which we, of course, returned). She then went over to Linda Sharlow to evangelize.

A prayer-warrior confronting Randy. He later made threats to a couple of other protestors, and we had to call over one of the officers to get him away from us.

Oh look, public school buses shuttling public school children to private Christians-only prayer events. Ain't Texas great?

Here's a genuine reunion. Long-standing member Brian McIntosh was MIA for nearly a year when he suddenly got back in contact with us. Turned out he had joined the Marines after graduating from UTA, and he'd just gotten a break from training. He'll be back in D/FW in a few weeks when he goes into the reserves.

Great to see you again, Brian!

Chuck's "HONK if you support separation of church and state" got a few honks from passing cars.

And, finally, here's the guy who charged Randy early on in the protest, trying to take away his megaphone. He was rather proud to pose for this picture. It's good to see folks who are proud to be inducted into the Unofficial Metroplex Atheists Hall Of Douchebags.