A U.S. federal appeals court Tuesday upheld the inscription of “In God We Trust” on the nation’s currency, ruling that America’s founding was full of examples of “official acknowledgements” of religion.
In rejecting a lawsuit by 27 atheists and two atheist organizations, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the motto violates neither the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of an establishment of religion nor the guarantee of free exercise of it.
Judge Raymond Gruender, who wrote the court’s opinion, pointed to instances from the nation’s founding in which the Founding Fathers referenced God or religion.
“For example, ‘[t]he First Congress made it an early item of business to appoint and pay official chaplains, and both the House and Senate have maintained the office virtually uninterrupted since that time,’” Gruender wrote. “… The ‘day after the First Amendment was proposed, Congress urged President Washington to proclaim a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts, the many and signal favours of Almighty God.’”
Those examples and others “shed light on the historical understandings of religion’s role in American life,” Gruender wrote.
“As the Supreme Court has proclaimed time and again,” he wrote, “our ‘unbroken history’ is replete…
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