A lawsuit against the the use of the motto “In God We Trust” on United States currency was recently dismissed. The case is Kidd vs. Obama, et. al. filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The decision is very short and you can read it in full here. Basically, the judge took the easy way out and simply cited previous (unfavorable) court decisions concerning the motto as evidence (and precedence) that no First Amendment case was made plain.

Near the end the judge gives the follow quotation as some kind of smoking gun from Aronow vs. United States (9th Circuit, 1970):

It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a government sponsorship of a religious exercise.

It is inconceivable to me how that statement could have been convincing then and still be convincing now. I suspect that this has become a convenient bluff to hide behind to avoid becoming the focus of the wrath of many religious people – which is something that any judge would have to endure who ruled against the motto despite it not (allegedly) having anything to do with religion!

Let’s parse this.

The motto has nothing to do with the establishment of religion.

The motto is clearly a religious statement – an affirmation that we (as a nation) trust in God. Therefore, it is plainly an establishment of religion over non-religion. No non-religious person places his or her trust in God.

The motto’s use is patriotic and ceremonial rather than religious, therefore it does not represent government sponsorship of religion.

How stupid do I look? In the 1950s, when the motto was official adopted and put on all currency as a matter of policy, ‘patriotism’ meant believing in God because not believing in God was associated with communism (or Stalinism). In other words, being patriotic necessarily meant being religious. So you cannot honestly tell me that its patriotic value means that it has no religious value. Of course it has religious use. Affirming one’s trust in a God is a religious exercise, plain and simple. Claiming that it is not a religious exercise is itself a bigger insult to religious believers than it is to atheists.

It’s time to get real here and time for our cowardly judges to cut the bullshit and call a spade a spade.