National Day of Prayer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is marking today's National Day of Prayer -- but not publicly.

The president is signing a proclamation about the day in private. There'll be no public ceremony involving prominent
clerics, lawmakers or prayers, as there was when George W. Bush was in the White House.

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says it's not that Obama thinks the observance was getting politicized, as some critics charge. Aides
say he's merely returning to the practice that prevailed before Bush took office -- of signing and issuing a proclamation.

Gibbs says Obama is well aware of the role prayer plays in the lives of Americans -- because he begins each day in private
worship.

A private group that promotes prayer events around the country says it's disappointed with what it says is a "lack of participation by the Obama administration." Shirley Dobson of the National Day of Prayer Task Force says it's a time in the nation's history when Obama should "recognize more fully the importance of prayer."

A group that challenges the Day of Prayer as a violation of the separation of church and state says it welcomes Obama's more
scaled- back observance. But the group says it's surprised that the Obama administration has so forcefully defended the observance
against a court challenge.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)