"IN GOD WE TRUST": IN THE SCHOOLS, YES OR NO?

The American Center For Law And Justice ^ | 1/24/2002 | CNSNEWS

[DNA Rules]

Virginia Bill Would Bring National Motto into the Classroom (CNSNews.com) - The Virginia House of Delegates is expected to take a final vote Thursday on a bill requiring every Virginia public school to post a sign bearing the national motto, "In God We Trust." The bill received preliminary approval on Wednesday. Del. Robert Marshall (R-Prince William), the bill's sponsor, says it is particularly important after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to post the motto invoking God in Virginia schools. But on the opposite side of the argument, people who consider the motto "religious graffiti" don't even want it on U.S. currency, never mind in public schools. The current bill, unlike one that died last year, would allow schools to accept private contributions to defray the cost of the "In God We Trust" posters. The motto was placed on U.S. currency, beginning with a two-cent coin in 1864, largely because of increased religious sentiment during the Civil War. In 1865, Congress passed a bill allowing the motto to appear on all gold and silver coins; and it appeared on all U.S. coins starting in 1938.

[goldstategop]

I smell a lawsuit in the works from the ACLU theophobes.... Of course we should! Its on our greenbacks & coins. It ought to good enough for our schools.

[Arthur McGowan]

Whatever may be allowed or not allowed in the government schools--prayers, mottos, Bible clubs, etc., is so totally uninteresting. Are prayers allowed in brothels? Who cares?

[AAABEST]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Where in the hell does it say in that amendment that schools must be purged of any rererence to God? It directy states that congress shall make no law one way or the other.

How has that been twisted in such an Orwellian fashion that any reference to God must be eliminated from anything that receives a single dollar from the government?

Even if local governments wanted to build a freakin' church on school property (which, incidentally, I wouldn't be for) I don't see how that would be considered congress making a law respecting the establishment of religion.

This is plain f**king black and white, clear English for God's sake. What the hell happend?

[alloysteel]

"In God We Trust" - all others pay cash.

[DNA Rules]

Hell happened.

[AAABEST]

The modern insanity of ignoring the plain laguage of the constitution must somehow be stopped. We're at the point where we're making it up as we go along.

I wouldn't have a problem with these a-holes in California teaching their Muslim crap in school, if they would let the rest of us alone. Unfortunately that's not the way it works.

The people that espouse this horses**t about "separation of church and state" ought to be dragged out and beaten mercilessly with a copy of the constitution. There is no "separation of church and state". It doesn't exist in the constitution anywhere. Nothing. I challenge anyone - atheist, Muslim, Christian or Jew - reading this to find otherwise.

Our congress is not supposed to make laws establishing religion, but that's where it ends. The founding documents were not designed to support the stamping out of the very creator mentioned in those same documents.

There is nothing that says elected state and local governments and school boards can't do as the constituants who elected them see fit.

[MissAmericanPie]

Same thing that happened to the Second Amendment, lawyers and judges.

[WriteOn]

Hang the schools -- homeschool.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Momma wanted to homeschool me but when we got to systems of partial differential equations she had to punt. So she sent me to public school, but the place had been overrun with Wiccans and Satanists who wanted to post the "Our Father" written backwards -- some sort of an incantation, we were told, to appease the dark spirits. Momma got mad, saying it was bad enough that she paid so much in taxes and she didn't want to pay to have some public school advertising the theological views of the local village idiots and that if they would kindly stop peddling their religious views and teach me how to solve systems of partial differential equations she'd be grateful. The school said that if I didn't want to chant incantations to dark spirits I could bow my head in a moment of silent reflection while the other kids went ahead, but Momma didn't seem to think that was "an acceptable resolution of the problem". The Wiccans and Satanists said bad things about Momma and suggested she wasn't a good parent and that they knew the One True Way and so on. Momma said later she thought they were insecure. Later on I read a book about a doomsday cult that minded their own business until their prophecies turned out to be false, and then they started a big campaign to convert everybody and attract members and tell everyone how, really, they had it all figured out. I was suprised, but when I mentioned the example to Momma she seemed to think it made sense somehow.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"Same thing that happened to the Second Amendment, lawyers and judges." I know what you mean. Everywhere I turn I find people trying to wiggle away from the plain meaning of the second amendment, even in FR.

[WriteOn]

Fortunately, I don't have to punt on the partial differentials... of course, you can't get partial differentials in a public high school in America, anyway.

[Sir Charles]

If we trust in God, "In God We Trust" should be everywhere it can be seen, and this is natural law, above the courtroom meatgrinders. If we don't trust in God, it doesn't matter whether we profess it or not. Simple as that. Like Bush says, you're either with us or against us. Seems like that stand fits an awful lot of the cancerous thinking that is taking over this Nation today.

[Pistias]

Who cares?

People with kids, I'd imagine.

[Pistias]

How has that been twisted in such an Orwellian fashion that any reference to God must be eliminated from anything that receives a single dollar from the government?

I'll give you a list of some of the relevant cases when I can get to my books tomorrow, if you'd like. I remember Lemon v. Kurtzmann (sp?), but I can't think of any others off the top of my head...3 hrs sleep/48 hour period makes for poor recall.

[Pistias]

What's He supposed to do, wave his wand and say "poof! you believe!"? People have to be reminded; we have a tendency to wander and forget what we know.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Maybe the worry is that if kids go several hours without hearing mention of God, and everything is still OK, they'll start drawing inferences ...

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"People have to be reminded" Ahhh ... So it's all about government paternalism. Interesting.