Should the motto "In God We Trust" be removed from U.S. currency?

Atheist challenges ‘In God We Trust’ Pledge of Allegiance foe Newdow sues to remove motto from U.S. currency

updated 9:09 p.m. CT, Fri., Nov. 18, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO - An atheist who has spent four years trying to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from being recited in public schools is now challenging the motto printed on U.S. currency because it refers to God.

Michael Newdow seeks to remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. coins and dollar bills, claiming in a federal lawsuit filed Thursday that the motto is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion.

Newdow, a Sacramento doctor and lawyer, used a similar argument when he challenged the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools because it contains the words “under God.”

Michael Newdow

Michael Newdow: "As I'm standing in line, I'm looking at the twenty dollar bill, and it says 'In God We Trust.' What the heck is this doing here? It just had never hit me. I looked at the ten dollar bill. 'In God We Trust.' And the five and the one and all the change. I thought, 'What is going on here? I don't trust in God. I'm an American.'"

"As I thought about it, I realized that the case to get 'under God' out of the pledge was stronger."

Atheist Alliance International Convention that's coming up for the weekend of September 25th - 28th

Michael Newdow (the plaintiff in the suit against "under God" in the pledge) and Jeremy Hall (the plaintiff in the suit against atheist discrimination in the army) will be there

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In his suit, the doctor essentially claimed that his 10-year-old daughter was being brainwashed every time she was prompted to recite the Pledge in her elementary school classroom.

he doesn't have legal standing to sue on behalf of his daughter. The girl's mother, Sandra Banning, happens to be a devout Christian, so no help there.

Newdow claims he was the victim of date rape, perpetrated by Banning during a camping trip at Yosemite National Park. "I specifically said 'no' multiple times before and during [sex]. Was I forced into being a father? Yeah." He also sometimes refers to himself (even in some court documents) as "The Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow, Esq." of the "First Amendmist Church of True Science".

Banning told reporters Wednesday, “The first day of third grade she (her daughter) volunteered — she was the first one to raise her hand to lead the class in reciting the pledge.”

Hollywood spent a mind-boggling $180 million to bring author Philip Pullman’s celebrated anti-religious novel, The Golden Compass, to the silver screen, but essentially stripped the work of its devastating attack on organized religion.

On the eve of the film’s release, we asked America’s most famous atheist, Dr. Michael Newdow, how he feels about this. Dr. Newdow is a California attorney and physician best known for his efforts to ban schools from reciting the Pledge of Allegiance because of the phrase “under God.”

By Michael Newdow 12.07.07

While the Catholic League maintains its animus towards The Golden Compass, one hopes that it will support this notion of government neutrality. Unfortunately, that seems unlikely. It was a Catholic organization, after all, that was the key group behind the 1954 alteration of the Pledge of Allegiance. In that year, the Knights of Columbus lobbied Congress to modify the words “one Nation indivisible” so that “one Nation under God, indivisible” (italics added) is what is now recited in our public schools. They still congratulate themselves over the change.

Interestingly, Catholics in the founding era were very much treated like the atheists of today. Our Founding Fathers literally hated the Catholics.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow is a minister in the First Atheist Church of True Science

http://tinyurl.com/6s2r6h

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atheist story described a Sunday gathering of freethinkers, humanists and atheists at Waterfront Park in Old Sacramento on what was dubbed Freethought Day, “a celebration of reason and church/state separation.”

The story was the page’s centerpiece, with a large photo of Michael Newdow singing into a microphone on a lonely stage with nary another human in sight.

Newdow is Sacramento’s famous atheist, a Godless news magnet.

Newdow is an atheist and an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. In 1997, he started an organization called FACTS (First Amendment Church of True Science), which advocates strong separation of church and state in public institutions

He told Brown Alumni Magazine that he can’t remember ever believing in God, saying, “I was born an atheist.”

In a November 14, 2005 interview with Fox News’s Neil Cavuto, Newdow compared “In God We Trust” appearing on United States currency with segregation (specifically separate drinking fountains), saying, “How can you not compare those? What is the difference there? Both of them [whites and blacks] got equal water. They both had access. It was government saying that it’s okay to separate out these two people on the basis of race. Here we’re saying it’s okay to separate two people on the basis of their religious beliefs.”

In November 2002, Newdow was given the Freethinker of the Year award by the Freedom From Religion Foundation following the Pledge case.

My son wrote me an e-mail and suggested that the best way to counteract this stupidity is simple. Write or print the words, IN GOD WE TRUST” on the back of all your envelopes and also, as an aside, print those words as a signature line at the end of all your e-mails.

You can legally have your own stamps printed with just about any image, logo or words you wish.

http://www.usps.com/postagesolutions/customizedpostage.htm

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