I know that atheists like to believe that America was set up as a nation bereft of religion, but that is not the truth. This nation has a rich Judeo-Christian heritage. The mere fact that the Bill of Rights says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” does not mean that there should be no religion in or connected to the government. It means that the government will not establish a state-run religion. None of the framers believed that a governmental connection to religion was evil, in fact it was embraced. Significantly, the U.S. Capitol building, whose cornerstone was laid in 1793, was used as a church. Congress approved of the Capitol being used as a church in 1800 and it was used as a church on Sundays until after the Civil War. President Washington’s first official act was to acknowledge God’s divine hand in the establishment of the United States in his first inaugural speech, when he said: “…it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either.” I can point out hundreds if not thousands of examples of how the Christian religion, but not a particular sect, was intertwined in government…After all this is a government Of and By the people, and if those people are Christian then so is their government. So don’t try to tell me the founders didn’t approve of or worship God in their day-to-day lives a religion intertwined with the government, but not a religion established and mandated by the same.
Now along comes Michael Newdow, a militant atheist, lawyer, and doctor, who above all other things it appears loves to sue the government to remove what he believes to be religious intrusion into his daily life. He has unsuccessfully sued to remove under God from the Pledge of Allegiance, the In God we Trust from coins and notes, and most notably in 2008 attempted to sue Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts from administering the oath of office to President elect Obama while including the words “so help me God.”
Now, today in 2015, he is again suing the government under the RFRA (religious freedom restoration act) to remove the words In God We Trust from coins and bills again. You’ve got to be kidding me, for one thing he is wasting taxpayer dollars by having the government respond to this frivolous crap…not that the government wouldn’t waste our dollars anyway, but even this is just stupid. He calls the phrase “offensive” and “unlawful” despite the fact that is has been affirmed by the ninth circuit of appeals. The ninth circuit, an appeals court so liberal it has been called the ninth circus of appeals, found that the motto, which was instituted in 1964 during the Civil War, was indeed legal. The cited an earlier case, Arnow v. United States (1970) which, “held the national motto is of a “patriotic or ceremonial character,” has no “theological or ritualistic impact,” and does not constitute “governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.”
But Newdow has found a new angle so it is time to sue again and see if he can’t continue to wipe Christianity out in America, which seems to be his ultimate goal, just like the FFRF (Freedom from Reality Religion Foundation). Newdow and others work to continue eroding the Judeo-Christian background of this country, but here, I don’t think he will be able to make much headway and rightly so.