TruthBook Religious News Blog

Published: August 29, 2008
By Cristin Ross

MSNBC.com has launched a “Live Vote” Internet poll on its Web site, asking “should the motto ‘In God We Trust’ be removed from U.S. currency?”

Of the 7,230,365 votes cast as of 11:45 a.m. Monday, 78 percent of those participating in the poll voted to keep the motto, compared to 22 percent voting to remove it from U.S. currency.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” said Kevin King, senior pastor of the First United Methodist Church-Jacksonville. “I think most people, particularly in this region, have a deep faith and believe this country was founded on that.

The Daily Progress’s attempts to interview a local atheist were unsuccessful.

MSNBC’s Web site acknowledges the poll is not a scientific survey. Phone messages left at MSNBC offices were not returned as of presstime today.

The poll stems from an Associated Press article, also published on the Web site, chronicling the efforts of Sacramento, Calif., atheist Michael Newdow to get the motto removed.

According to the AP article, Newdow filed a federal lawsuit last week, claiming the motto is “an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.”

Congress first authorized a reference to God on a two-cent piece in 1864. The action followed a request by the director of the U.S. Mint, who wrote there should be a “distinct and unequivocal national recognition of the divine sovereignty” on the nation’s coins.

In 1954, Congress inserted the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. A year later, Congress required all currency to carry the motto “In God We Trust.”

“The placement of ‘In God We Trust’ on the coins and currency was clearly done for religious purposes and to have religious effects,” Newdow wrote in the 162-page lawsuit he filed against Congress.

Newdow’s latest lawsuit came five days after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected, without comment, a challenge to an inscription of “In God We Trust” on a North Carolina county government building.

In doing so, the justices upheld the Richmond, Va.-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that “In God We Trust” appears on the nation’s coins and is a national motto.

“In this situation, the reasonable observer must be deemed aware of the patriotic uses, both historical and present, of the phrase ‘In God We Trust,”’ the appeals panel ruled in upholding the inscription’s display.

Newdow, a doctor and lawyer, used a similar argument when he challenged the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools for containing the words “under God.” In 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled he “lacked standing to bring the case because he did not have custody of the daughter he sued on behalf of.”

An identical lawsuit later brought by Newdow on behalf of parents with children in three Sacramento-area school districts is pending with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, after a Sacramento federal judge sided with Newdow last September. The judge stayed enforcement of the decision pending appeal, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court.

Labels: "In God We Trust", atheism, Cristin Ross, currency, Michael Newdow, money, MSNBC, US Constitution

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

‘In God We Trust’ Motto Still Mints Controversy

By Adelle Banks
Religion News Service

WASHINGTON—Fifty years after “In God We Trust” first appeared on U.S. paper currency, those four little words have proven to be the source of big debate in the courts.

Michael Newdow, the California atheist known for trying to strip “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to declare “In God We Trust” an unconstitutional mingling of church and state. In Indiana, the American Civil Liberties Union has gone to district court, arguing it’s unfair for the state not to charge administrative fees for “In God We Trust” license plates when a plate advocating for the environment carries extra fees.

Why, decades after the words were made the nation’s official motto and printed on our dollar bills, do they still inspire ire?

Long before the words were printed on paper money, they first appeared on coins after a Pennsylvania minister wrote to the secretary of the treasury in 1861, suggesting God’s name should be featured on U.S. coins.

“This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism,” M.R. Watkinson wrote to Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase in 1861, according to the website of the U.S. Treasury Department. Three years later, U.S. coins began to bear the words “In God We Trust.”

It wasn’t until 1956 that Congress declared those words to be the national motto. On Oct. 1, 1957, they began appearing on the back of dollar bills under the words “The United States of America.”

Newdow, whose case was dismissed by a lower federal court last year, said the words referring to a deity divide society by making non-believers “second-class citizens.”

Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, has filed a brief opposing Newdow on behalf of dozens of members of Congress.

“It reflects the heritage of the country,” he said of the debated motto. “It’s something the founding fathers recognized, that our rights and liberties were endowed by a creator. You recognize the source of these rights.”

A 2003 Gallup Poll found 90 percent of Americans approve of the inscription “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins. A survey released earlier this month by the First Amendment Center found 65 percent of Americans think the nation’s founders intended the country to be a Christian nation, and 55 percent think the U.S. Constitution establishes it as a Christian country.

About a dozen states have passed laws declaring public schools can post the motto. Five years ago, the American Family Association was involved in a campaign that shipped hundreds of thousands of posters to supporters so they could send them to local schools.

“I think we need to be constantly reminded and, although I don’t look at my coins and my paper money day by day, there is a great satisfaction knowing that it’s there and knowing that our government still recognizes God,” said Randy Sharp, director of special projects for the American Family Association, based in Tupelo, Miss.

Labels: "In God We Trust", ACLU, Adelle Banks, American Center for Law and Justice, Christian, God