Thanksgiving Proclamations

I have over the years been concerned about public holiday displays. The Supreme Court has various cases involving creches, menorahs, and crosses. 

The Roberts Courts dealt with a large cross honoring WWI vets this way: 

Where monuments, symbols, and practices with a longstanding history follow in the tradition of the First Congress in respecting and tolerating different views, endeavoring to achieve inclusivity and nondiscrimination, and recognizing the important role religion plays in the lives of many Americans, they are likewise constitutional.

We are left to reasonably guess if the 1980s divided court case striking down a creche standing alone is still good law. A government with a public holiday display would be safe if it made sure to mix in other holiday stuff like a tree, Santa Claus, and so forth.  

I'm going to limit myself to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. The parlor game in the oral arguments was to cite something like the court crier saying "God Save This Honorable Court" or sanitation costs for the pope giving a speech and other cases much more minor than the case at issue.* 

Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations, per congressional legislation, have been repeatedly cited. The dissent in Lee v. Weisman, striking down a school-crafted invocation policy for graduations, noted (cleaning up the quotation):

The day after the First Amendment was proposed, Congress urged President Washington to proclaim "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favours of Almighty God." President Washington proclaimed November 26, 1789, a day of thanksgiving to "offer our prayers and supplications to the Great Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions." 

Justice Souter in his concurrence for three justices noted that the practices were contested. Jefferson thought it was a violation of the First and Tenth (federal invasion of a state function) Amendments. Madison ultimately argued the same. 

Blackmun (who also concurred) in that creche case argued that Thanksgiving could be declared as a secular holiday. Also, he noted some past Thanksgiving proclamations were blatantly sectarian, including talking about Jesus Christ.  

The president can individually express religious beliefs about public holidays and whatever. It would be a good policy to be religious and open-minded here. Still, it is separate from officially endorsed religious belief. President Biden's final Thanksgiving Proclamation is secular in nature with a brief personal religious statement (keeping people in their prayers). 

Justice Souter also noted:

[R]eligious invocations in Thanksgiving Day addresses and the like, rarely noticed, ignored without effort, conveyed over an impersonal medium, and directed at no one in particular, inhabit a pallid zone worlds apart from official prayers delivered to a captive audience of public school students and their families. Madison himself respected the difference between the trivial and the serious in constitutional practice.

Using these things as too relevant when addressing prayer practices or even holiday symbols people will regularly see (though it's closer) is silly. I might think "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is dubious, but it is still clearly much less troublesome than starting school with full-fledged prayer or Bible readings.  

Still. If Congress wants to declare Thanksgiving a national holiday and have the president so administer with some remarks, it's not a problem. The original idea of the legislature having the president declare a day of "prayer" honoring "Almighty God" is quite different. Jefferson/Madison was correct.

The government should not be doing that. It's a type of law that respects the establishment of religion, however minor in nature. It is one of various official honoring of religious beliefs (such as court oaths saying "so help me God") that renders what is God's to Caesar, to paraphrase a certain biblical figure. I would avoid doing that. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

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* People, including religious leaders, have the right to give speeches in public places. 

The government does not endorse the message (including hateful speech) by providing sanitation and other services. Also, the pope can be said to be a foreign leader, the head of a sovereign state. That would be another reason for a government-sponsored event where the pope gives a speech. 

The Supreme Court's opening cry is said by rote and is not akin to ongoing prayer ceremonies and the like. A single motto or the like is different from a prayer ceremony or giving invocations at government hearings. Those things have a lot more content. 

If we want to be pure about things, yes, we should not officially petition God to protect our institutions. It would ultimately to the stickler (or maybe just the careful Christian) violate Jesus's instructions to only pray in private.