Against United States Currency Mentioning God Essays -- Politics Gover

In God We Trust should be removed from United States currency. The mention of God, which is a religious belief, misrepresents those United States citizens who do not hold this belief. In Source D, Jon Murray, President of the non-profit organization American Atheists, argues that the motto In God We Trust inscribed on the mint violates the costless Speech, Free Exercise, and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment. It violates Free Speech by the inability to erase or eliminate the inscription by making it illegal by criminal law that whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than louver years, or both (18 USC Sec 331). It is likewise this way with paper notes in 18 USC Sec 332. To function in this society, people must carry near money. People who dont support the inscription are forced to carry around fa lse representation and therefore, according to Murray, this violates the Free Expression Act. The Establishment Clause isnt so clear, mainly that Church and State must be separate and that the government should avoid any entanglements with religion. Recently, instead of Will there be too practically government entanglement with religion? judges have been defining violation of the Establishment as if the subject ?benefits religion in a way more direct and more substantial than practices that are excepted into our national heritage.? And that?s what the blurry notion of what?s religious and what?s in our heritage is (Source I).A general argument debating the motto on our coins is that ?God? is not, in fact, a religious belief, merely an important par... ...DocServer/In_God_We_Trust_In_Public_Schools.pdf?docID=151?.Leahy, James E. The First Amendment, 1791-1991 Two Hundred days of Freedom. McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers. 1991.Murray, Jon. ?God On Our Coins?. American Atheists . Sept. 14, 1988. .Swank, Grant. ?Atheist Attacks ?In God We Trust.?? The Conservative Voice. Aug. 16, 2006. .United States Department of the Treasury. Coins and Currency. History of ?In God We Trust?. Online Database. August 31, 2007. .W.W. Hening. Statutes at Large of Virginia, vol. 12. 1823. Jefferson, Thomas. Pages 84-86 ?Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.? .