CREW Urges Obama to Skip the Prayer Breakfast.

From Lezgetreal, a story on the recent call by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) for Obama to skip The Family's annual National Prayer Breakfast.

Sure, it's important to end the charade that the prayer breakfast is some innocuously faithful event now that the lid has been blown off the real workings of The Family. But what I wouldn't give to hear senators and representatives vocalize disdain for the infiltration of our government by a creepy pseudo-Christian group that has been influencing national and international politics for decades with quiet money, secret trips, crazy theology, and disdain for American's founding objectives. But alas, if it's sex scandals and a breakfast meeting that gets us all upset, so be it. The more exposure The Family gets, the better.

And lordy, if you haven't yet read the book, buy it now!

In a letter (pdf) addressed to President Obama,Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, CREW(Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) asks that the administration not support the National Prayer Breakfast, run by the religious group known as “The Family”. President Obama has been invited and is expected to attend and address the gathering, as he did last year. In fact, up until 1970, it was called the “Presidential Prayer Breakfast”.

In an interview with AlterNet in December 2009, Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The secret fundamentalism at the heart of American power, points out that invitations to the event are sent on congressional headed paper, despite the event clearly a Christian, non-ecumenical event and is clearly in violation of the First Ammendment.

CREW cites a laundry list of ethics scandals involving those affiliated with the group, especially those housed at the notorious C-Street location in Washington DC. Names include: Senator John Ensign, Senator Tom Coburn, Governor Mark Sanford, and Representative Todd Tiahrt. They go on to show how The Family fail to operate with any clear mission or transparency, and seem to recruit heavily from amongst legislators.