A prayer victory.

• Position: Editor's Note - Freedom From Religion Foundation wins case over National Day of Prayer - Editorial

Gore Vidal once said, "Whenever a friend succeeds, something inside me dies." But I'm not dying, I'm cheering, because a couple of friends of mine, Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, recently scored a tremendous victory.

They run the Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the leading groups of atheists, agnostics, and freethinkers in the country. They happen to be based right here in Madison, Wisconsin. We shop at the same neighborhood co-op, and I even coached their daughter in soccer for a year or two. (Fuller disclosure: They also advertise with us.)

Fearless and cheery, they go to court whenever they see government, at any level, violating the separation of church and state.

So I wasn't surprised they sued over the National Day of Prayer.

But I was a little surprised, and very pleased, that they won, thanks to a courageous federal judge, also of Madison, whom I see occasionally on the tennis courts.

I'm referring to U.S. district judge Barbara Crabb, who ruled in April that the National Day of Prayer violates the first ten words of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

The National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, she ruled, "because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context." She added: "In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience. ... The government may not use its authority to try to influence an individual's decision whether and when to pray."

This decision lets those who want to foist their religion upon us know that this is not what the founders believed and this is not what the Constitution requires.

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