The U.S. National Park Service says the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., commemorates “service, sacrifice, unity, and victory.” After last night, however, they might as well scratch “unity” off that list.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted 370-12 yesterday in favor of adding a prayer given by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 6, 1944 (D-Day) to the memorial. (To see how your representative voted and/or send your representative a comment on the vote click here.)

Unfortunately the U.S. Senate had already approved the measure June 5 by unanimous consent, so now all it needs is a signature by President Barack Obama to become law.

The "World War II Memorial Prayer Act” has been kicked around by both houses of Congress since 2011. It passed the full House back in 2012, but the Senate had never OK’d the measure until this month.

If Obama signs the bill, a plaque with FDR’s prayer will be added to the monument. That invocation reads, in part:

“And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.”

The current memorial, dedicated on May 29, 2004, represents all 16 million people who served in our armed forces in World War II. During the Second World War, sensitivity to religious and philosophical diversity wasn’t exactly a high priority. Service member dog tags allowed for just four designations: “C” (Catholic), “P” (Protestant), “H” (Hebrew) or blank for “no preference.” As a result, we will likely never know how many atheists, humanists, Buddhists, Pagans, etc. served in the war.

But we do know the story of at least one non-believer who fought with the United States Army in Europe: Kurt Vonnegut.

The celebrated novelist was one of a number of Americans captured by the German army during the Battle of the Bulge. After his capture, Vonnegut was taken to Dresden, which was fire bombed by British and American forces on the night of Feb. 13, 1945. Vonnegut escaped death mainly by chance – he was forced by his captors into a slaughterhouse located 60 feet underground, offering him shelter while the city above burned.

Vonnegut, whose experiences informed his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five, was a well-known humanist. In fact, he was a honorary president of the American Humanist Association (AHA) and received the AHA’s “Humanist of the Year” award in 1992.

Surely Vonnegut, who passed away in 2007, would not appreciate being “honored” by a memorial that essentially belittles the contributions of anyone who doesn’t believe in the Judeo-Christian God.

Aside from the fact that adding a prayer to the monument is extremely disrespectful to veterans like Vonnegut, altering a memorial more than 10 years after its dedication is nearly unprecedented. As Americans United Legislative Director Maggie Garrett noted in Senate testimony submitted last year, adding a prayer to the WWII Memorial is not the same as when Congress decided to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial or when former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole was honored with a plaque at the WWII Memorial.

“Neither the King nor the Dole plaque changed the content and message of the Memorial to which they were added: they did not alter, remove, or add language, images, or emblems relating to the honoring of President Lincoln or World War II Veterans,” she said. “Neither second guessed the designers, historians, architects, or public input regarding the best way to honor Lincoln or veterans at the memorials. Instead, they left the memorials intact.”

Of course Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who has sponsored the prayer bill along with Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), didn’t see it that way.

“[M]y bill will immortalize this extraordinary prayer on the World War II Memorial so it becomes a permanent reminder of the sacrifice of not just those who fought in World War II, but also of the men and women who fight for us today and all those who lay down their lives for the cause of liberty,” Portman said in a statement.

Fortunately, at least one member of Congress didn’t agree with Portman’s assessment. During a House debate yesterday, Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), whose father served in World War Two, noted that forcing religion into a secular monument takes away from the stated purpose of the monument, which is supposed to promote unity.

From the beginning, this push for the prayer has been nothing but an unholy alliance between the Religious Right and politicians looking to score cheap points with their constituents. After all, the addition of the prayer to the memorial was backed by fundamentalist groups, including the Ohio Christian Alliance and the Christian Coalition of America.

This move to alter a war memorial well after the fact also seemingly opens the door for religious messages to be added to other national monuments. The Religious Right could easily decide: If a prayer was added to one memorial, then why can’t it be added to others?

Like all our veterans, the 16 million who served in WWII are owed a tremendous debt by this country. Yet, Congress has decided that the beliefs of some in that group don’t count. That is not what our veterans fought for. It is not what they deserve.