FFRF has brought legal challenges to the phrase “In God We Trust,” both as the national motto and on currency, but the phrase has survived due to a legal fantasy that it is merely patriotic and has no religious significance (although the U.S. Supreme Court has never considered this question).
When an identical bill was considered by a Florida House subcommittee, its supporters made clear that the phrase “In God We Trust” is meant to promote religious belief in a deity, not mere patriotism. Lawmakers bemoaned that “we’re taking God out of everything . . . just go into your community right now and see how many young people are even attending church anymore. Many of them don’t even value or respect life anymore.”
There is no doubt that bills to place “In God We Trust” in public schools are intended to promote a religious message. Attempted justifications about the bill’s patriotic goals are merely a smokescreen for its true religious purpose.
This bill is part of a national fundamentalist campaign to post “In God We Trust” in every public school classroom. Congress adopted the “In God We Trust” slogan in 1956 at the behest of the Knights of Columbus, which undertook a national lobbying campaign during the height of 1950s zealotry. The original U.S. motto, chosen by a distinguished committee of Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, is the Latin E Pluribus Unum (From Many, [Come] One). A direct challenge of the religious motto has never been heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, assisted by Colorado attorney Robert R. Tiernan, filed a federal lawsuit in 1994 challenging both the law adopting the religious slogan (1956), and the law requiring it to appear on all U.S. currency (1955). The Foundation lawsuit was dismissed by a 10th Circuit federal judge on the grounds that “In God We Trust” is not a religious phrase (1994). The Foundation appealed the dismissal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which did not take the case in 1996.
As Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says, the religious motto isn’t even accurate: “To be accurate it would have to read ‘In God Some of us Trust,’ and wouldn’t that be silly?”
