A Religious Motto Isn't Religious?

[Music] welcome to this week's episode of FFRF ask an atheist I am your host constitutional attorney here at FFRF Liz Cavell I'm Ryan J another attorney here at FFRF and I'm Andrew Seidel an attorney and FFRF Specter of strategic response today we're gonna be talking about In God We Trust in public schools these laws are popping up everywhere but not coincidentally they are part of a coordinated Christian nationalist agenda which is not really being reported on that's right and we'll also look at a few dubious moves by the Trump administration a hotbed always of Christian nationalism including exempting Bibles from the Chinese tariff war and a speech by Mike Pence that he gave to the American Legion that was more than a little bit misleading first we're gonna get to the in god we trust' laws and as always if you've got questions you can ask them in the comments right below or you can send an email to ask an atheist at FFRF dot org so in god we trust' in schools and the laws that are popping up all over the country Ryan tell us about what we're seeing and what FFRF is doing sure so over the last couple years we've tracked a bunch of these bills that have passed in some states and you may have seen them they've been getting some coverage where they're putting the national motto In God We Trust up in public schools in some states they're becoming mandated so this is a map that we've created of all the bills and laws that we've tracked of where this is happening so that the black marked states are the ones where it is mandatory you can see there are ten of them the red ones are eleven states where the law explicitly allows public schools to place this religious motto in there and then with the blue are other states where this has been opposed but the bills have not passed Wow so this is a lot of states that we're we're tracking these bills right and in the black there just to clarify these are states where the state legislature has passed a law saying schools in the state you must display in god we trust' and some some of them say conspicuously some of them say in every classroom with some of them say in every school so this is really a an alarming kind of piece of indoctrination in our public schools Andrew what are we doing on the education side tell us about what you've been writing about this problem well there's there's a lot of misinformation and kind of a lack of really solid reporting going around on these bills you know if you are in Kentucky you've probably heard about the one in your schools if you're in Florida you've heard about it in your schools out of the South Dakota law made national news but nobody's really reporting on the fact that these are all part of a coordinated push something called Project blitz and project blitz is this Christian nationalist agenda they if three different groups literally put together a handbook of bills that can be passed and the end goal as the end goal of Christian nationalism is is to make it so that Christians are this privileged favored class and everybody else is second-class citizens and they start off with these sort of small ceremonial symbolic bills and then they work their way up to essentially saying that Christians have a right to discriminate because they are Christians and that's that's really the end goal of project blitz and most of the bills that we've seen proposed in the last two years are lifted from directly from the project blitz playbook yes so we've been trying to educate about that yep and so this is super important if anyone comes to you and says these are these are patriotic bills this is a message just to instill patriotism in unity I it's I think really important to remind everybody that this is tied to a series of bills of series of legislative model bills that are specifically about Christian supremacy so this is a Christian motto and a Christian bill right this is so the in god we trust' in schools bills are phase one of a three-phase plan that is supposed to culminate and basically institutionalizing and legalizing discrimination mostly against LGBTQ Americans by religious actors all across the spectrum so these bills are really laying the groundwork for more and more increasingly harmful bills so Andrew tell us about the rewire pieces well and we should say too it's it's not you're right that it's not just Christians who are gonna get the right to discriminate but that's what project what's it's trying to do and it's not just LGBT that will be discriminated against right of course probably saw over the weekend you know they're also looking to discriminate along racial lines there was that story out of Mississippi that now has made national news about a venue refusing to marry an interracial couple because the Bible says so which I think they walked back but anyway although she walked it back saying I was wrong the Bible doesn't for a bit interesting so we've been I've been writing a few pieces for rewire news online specifically the Religion Dispatches site and I wanted to really explain to everyone what is going on here so there's three different pieces the first is the history of the in god we trust' motto how how a secular country got a Christian nationalist motto it tells the story during 1863 when three guys a preacher the director of the mint and the Secretary of the Treasury worked to put God the Christian God on our coinage and why we ended up with this the second tells the story of project blitz and how this is a coordinated push and the third talks about why the motto has been upheld by the federal courts which is essentially they say look this motto is not religious and and to me that is just it's just this rank hypocrisy coming from Christians allowing they're allowing a federal court to say that your this motto is which professors to trust in God is not a religious thing so the motto we know has been challenged in court as you're alluding to as a violation of the Establishment Clause in other words it's clearly a declaration of religious faith in god we trust and that adopting it as our national motto is in itself the government advocating for a religious viewpoint courts have rejected that and what you're talking about is sort of the bogus rationale that's been adopted and that stands today which is this idea that the motto is sort of existing in this in-between world because it's this ceremonial expression of a shared system of belief and it's been repeated so often that it's been it's religious meaning has been somehow diluted exactly and I mean and that is what the courts have said and I mean through rote repetition it's lost any of its legal significance as one of the lines in it I mean that's just utter nonsense and you can imagine what the outcry would be if a federal court said this about something else for instance if they said it about the Bible verse John 3:16 which is you see it everywhere it doesn't lose its religious significance just because it's so often repeated or praying the rosary for instance right and it's hypocrisy to declare otherwise right so so that's the third piece that you wrote that's up on Religion Dispatches and these pieces a lot of people are reading them and seeing them which is great they've been on the you know top three pieces and rewired news Religion Dispatches trending part 1 part 2 part 3 there they are is really exciting that's great because we want people to understand project blitz is real it's happening right under our noses these laws are being adopted you saw the map that Ryan was describing these laws are passing and phase one you know the groundwork is being laid for a series of Christian nationalist Christian supremacy laws to be put on the books state by state so and and we talked about you know how the courts are favorable to In God We Trust but the courts are also going to get worse and worse because of how many judges the Trump administration is putting in that had this Christian nationalist bent so if we're relying on the courts to help us stop project blitz you know that that's not the only way we're gonna be able to stop it right Kim we can't rely on the court right yeah these laws need to be stopped in the state legislatures where they are yeah we can't trust John Roberts to be the one to stand up to project blitz so you have to convince your legislators that this is a problem right that's right okay well let's move on for a minute to the Chinese trade war fun favorite topic of the day we're gonna talk about what the Trump administration is focusing on which is how it's hurting the Bible so this was done by the administration in the name of religious liberty which is exempting Bible from these Chinese tariffs Andrew thoughts well Ryan you wrote a great letter for Dan and Annie Laurie on this too what what do you want to explain who do you write to and what yeah yeah so we we draft a letter as you know to the the Federal Trade Representative who is in charge of deciding what products are subject to this tariff from which are not so this is of course under the this is a cabinet-level Trump position so he's a trump appointee and this is you know really gonna be Trump's decision but but it all stems from this this trade war that that Trump has sort of thrown us into right so the ideas were slapping these tariffs on Chinese imports meaning if you import something from China you as the importer are gonna have to pay an extra tax on that and there are certain things that they said we should be exempted from the tariff so it was initially this incredibly broad sweeping tariffs and it still is but there are certain things that they said should be exempt so most of these had some rationality behind it where they were having to do with health or safety but then curiously Bibles were on that list as well so they specifically said you can import Bibles and don't have to worry about tariffs right and your on screen now and PR headline about this series of tariffs targeted tariff exemptions flags and Bibles out frog meet delayed and of course the Bibles they're bullet pointed where NPR said the importers prayers for an exemption were granted so I'm super hilarious not funny at all so so we wrote in it and basically said you should change your your policy on this there is no rational reason to exempt Bibles from this tariff and and not things such as textbooks for instance other books are not exempt so that's that's the ask that we have gone for and the only explanation that they have offered is that what we've mentioned before that they cited religious liberty yeah which and it that's just the most absurd claim I mean first of all it's that the First Amendment says that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion and putting a ten percent added price on to your Bible isn't in no way prohibiting your religion there are more Bibles in the United States than there are human beings apparently so this is it there's no danger that people aren't going to get their Bible this isn't an issue of religious liberty this is an issue of religious privilege right they have gotten this book they're used to it and they they believe that they have a right to continue to import it at a certain price that's really just entitlement it's not religious freedom and when your religious entitlement is eroded down to the level of equality that's just equality welcome to it right and it's really hard to imagine that like anyone is actually like never mind all the like small farmers and small business owners and like people who are actually being affected by the Chinese tariffs like this is probably not about all the people who are gonna have to like pay more for their Bibles that everyone's buying hard copies I've been reading it for free and I mean Hotel yes see also internet but it's just about you know what the administration kind of can present itself as by saying oh and all these tariffs and imports and but Bibles are exempt and that's what the Trump administration you know is is standing for you not our Bibles and leaving aside how hilarious it is that every absolutely everything being consumed by Americans is made in China including our Bible right it's I mean I think you're right on to make that point it you know NPR's joke about their prayers were answered is kind of funny but not all funny because it actually shows the influence that Christian nationalists have on this administration and how beholden this administration feels to this very loud really minority interest group and look when I was working on this letter I I looked it up and it appears that the best estimate that we have is that there are there are more Bibles in the United States than there are people they gave the average number per household of people and Bibles and Bibles 0.7 Bibles per household having 2.5 people yes it's almost double almost double how many people there are which is just insane and it shows kind of like what you were saying Liz that this is from Christian churches and organizations that want to import the Bible to just spread it everywhere this is not about people who say you know my library lacks this one book is why I need to get up to order a Bible right right this is making you know no this is easing no one's economic burden it's just showboating how privileged Christians are in every possible way under this administration great way to say so yeah that's cool speaking of how privileged Christians are under this administration the last topic before we take some questions from our audience Mike Pence gave a ridiculous speech to the American Legion and we're gonna take a look here let's see a clip you might have heard even today that there's a lawsuit to remove a Bible that was carried in World War two from a missing man table at a VA hospital in New Hampshire there's a lawsuit underway it's really no surprise because under the last administration VA hospitals were removing Bibles and even banning Christmas carols in an effort to be politically correct but let me be clear under this administration the a hospital's will not be religion free zones we will always respect the freedom of religion of every veteran of every faith and my message to the new hampshire VA hospital is the bible stays such a compelling speaker mike pence doing what Mike Pence does which is pandering to Christians and of course there's a lot to unpack there into a fact checking on that story he's talking about an issue that arose in a New Hampshire VA hospital regarding this missing man table so let's just kind of briefly talk about it's up on the screen here it described what that what's the missing man table what's he talking so this is this is a table that's meant to honor POWs and MI A's and to honor their memory you know pointing out that we remember you and we remember your sacrifice and they're they're popping up all over the country but they're also being tainted with religion all over the country and the military Religious Freedom Foundation brought a lawsuit against this particular display because they included a Bible in it and there's a couple things wrong with what pence said first of all this is no longer up to the administration the administration doesn't have a say because the federal court is now gonna adjudicate this issue so he's wrong there and the second thing is he had really misrepresented that lawsuit it was actually brought by a quote devout Christian the the plaintiff in that lawsuit claims to be a devout Christian who's doing this because he doesn't want religion forced on his military brothers and sisters which is it's a very honorable reason to bring a lawsuit and if you listen to a pence he's making it seem out like this anti religion thing when really it's a pro Constitution thing yeah well that's that there's a strong history of that in state church cases where the plaintiff is just either not the money not a majority religion or they just don't want their government imposing religion but it always gets twisted into this oh the atheists are are doing it another thing is the original display of that pío WMI a table didn't even include a Bible it was added later so is the same for that particular display that is that was challenged in that lawsuit yeah it's not just all not just that particular powr am i a display but all powa mi a displays like this didn't have the Bible irrationally yep another thing too is he went with the the thanks Obama defense saying that this is Obama's fault and the policy change actually happened under george w bush's watch 2008 yeah I mean the pence right here is defending Christian privilege he's not defending religious liberty it's it's incredibly frustrating to watch how there's there's all this subtle disinformation and then there's these sort of outright lies and and one of them is what Ryan just mentioned that this is not a Obama policy that he is mentioning this is actually something that his party did write it all I came it really what it did was come from this this fake Todd Starnes article that is not not real I Tod start well personal let's let's stop for one second because everybody so Todd Starnes is not a journalist speaking of misinformation speaking of misinformation I mean he's one of the worst purveyors of the Christian persecution complex out there he writes these inflated he's written a whole inflated book about it he does not tear about facts he does not care about reality he cares about fear-mongering that is all his goal is so this is more of a blog than an article um American Legion outraged over VA Christmas censorship and so this is kind of one of the roots of the misinformation about yeah yeah and it you know he he's Mike Pence is repeating something that Snopes actually debunked in 2015 right and this that that blog being from 2013 yeah and if you if you follow the there's another policy that pence mentioned he talked about the Christmas carolers that policy that was actually a case out of Georgia where the VA asked a high school that was coming into saying hey if you're gonna sing sectarian Christian songs we'd like you to do that in private where veterans can attend rather than singing them in public spaces we'd like you to limit it to really inclusive songs in the public spaces you can you can absolutely sing those other songs just let what we're gonna do it in a private area where people can attend it it's not being forced on everybody else and of course in their minds this is this is just a gross violation of religious liberty to ensure that the machinery of the state is not being used to impose Christianity on others right and I mean and there you can hear it just in the delivery compared to what he's actually talking about just the doublespeak of you know podium pounding and saying this administration is gonna protect the religious liberty of everybody no matter what religion by putting a Christian Bible every table everywhere honoring you know POWs nmi is it's just like it's just beyond alternative facts it's just I'm telling you one thing and the actual situation is something else it's just like this this inability to see that protecting the religious liberty of everybody of every religion actually means religious neutrality by the military and by the US government it doesn't mean not removing Christian symbols from public property you can really see that when he's talking about the religion free zones you know that's the quintessential he does not understand what true religious liberty is he does not debt that the freedom of religion can only be protected when a government is free from religion he sees the government as a means to impose his religion on everybody else yeah and he sees and he sees a neutral space as a religion free zone being you know excessive political correctness and so it's the same thing with the the Bible tariffs we were talking about before where if if you have to play by the same rules as everyone else for your Bibles that's an attack on religious liberty and you can count on it that once we start to get state legislators to remove In God We Trust mandatory laws from public schools they're gonna say that's an attack on Christianity - right right I mean just have a fundamental misunderstanding of religion and it that's actually not fair it's not a misunderstanding they're deliberately warping what they're meaning of religious liberty and religious they're weaponizing religious liberty right purpose that's right well on that note let's take some questions we are oops we are getting a couple questions coming in here so here we go oh geez is there any illegal push in the works to get in god we trust' off of the currency so we alluded a little bit before to challenges that have already been brought against the motto and one of the main sort of vehicles for that has been challenges to and god we trust' being on the currency and andrew's second rewire piece right is the one that addresses this point too so if you haven't already tapped those up go ahead and do it so you can learn more that way yeah definitely check that article i already explained it really does go into the legality of this backwards and forwards like i quote quote a number of court cases on it I quote the judges in these cases it's really it's frustrating but I don't I don't think we cannot rely on courts to do this for us I absolutely think that in our lifetime in my lifetime that is that is no longer going to be our national motto In God We Trust will be gone it will be off our money but I we I it is not gonna happen in the courts and we should not wait for the courts to solve this problem for us and also say that in god we trust' in public schools to my knowledge has never been considered by a federal appellate court a couple district courts have considered it and so that is technically an open battle but again we just you don't want john roberts to be making the call on this you can't trust the supreme court right now well kind of on that note Mary McConnell asking how do I go about filing an official complaint about the required posting of a sign and God We Trust now prominently displayed on the entry window of our public school office so of course because these laws are going into effect in so many states we're getting a lot of complaining from parents in these school districts who you know arriving at school again in the new school year to see these just gross you know huge in god we trust' signs emblazoned above the door of the elementary school or in the front office or wherever so you can report that to FFRF you can go to our website FFRF dot org fill out our intake form and let us know where it is where you are who what when where I mean people I think people should complain to their school board right they should complain to their elected officials at every different level they should write letters to the editor for their local papers and their local media outlets I mean the key here is to not be quiet and should not take this line down and when you're reporting it to FFRF there's probably not a lot we're going to do about that individual display unless something else is going on like we're looking for an opportunity where a student is being bullied because this display is up or teachers are referring to this display to say that they're able to teach creationism or some nonsense like that we're looking for we're looking for the display plus yeah and that's all the more reason to bring it up to school administration and the school board because if you go to a school board meeting and I you you know say I don't think that this should be displayed especially if you're in a state where it's not mandatory or maybe it is but they have it gigantic and you say can we have a more reasonable the thing that complies with the law but doesn't hit everyone over the head with it and if they come back and say you know sorry this is a Christian nation and we you know if you're a Christian get out of here then suddenly this is now actionable right and so I think the takeaway is try to if you can be vocal in your community these are these are laws at the state level so your state legislatures are the ones passing and imposing these laws on you and your children's public schools and so those are the people that need to hear from you and the school boards that represent you and the administrators yeah and something we haven't really talked about is this is absolutely exclusionary I mean this is saying to every kid who goes into that school like this is a school that believes in God and a shoe chunk of kids these days do not believe in God they are not religious I mean you're talking about like more than a third of kids are not religious and so what what the government is doing what these state legislators are doing is they are dividing children along religious lines which is wildly unacceptable and that is the argument that we should be making to these public officials and in the papers and shouting from the rooftops and even some believers too like Orthodox Jews don't write out God that way for instance so this is obviously not referring to their God you know so this is it yeah it's extremely exclusionary right okay so Vikki here asks where in the Constitution does it say In God We Trust is our national motto ha it doesn't so you can read Andrews pieces on Religion Dispatches at rewire but just briefly where did we get our national motto I mean so this it popped up for the first time during the civil war in 1863 and I do tell the story and I tell the rewire news piece is an abbreviated version of the story that I tell in the founding myth the book that I just wrote about Christian nationalism and all the myths surrounding Christian nationalism it wasn't it didn't become our motto until the 1950s but it is in the US code that In God We Trust shall be the national motto right meaning it's a statute that was passed by the United States Congress which means that all come all it has to happen for it to go away is Congress to repeal that statute and then the various regulations mandating that its own the currency right and they could adopt for instance you pluribus unum it wouldn't even if we repeal the statute I get amendment a chude says as a pluribus unum shall be the national motto right after that would be really nice because a lot of these state statutes are say the national motto so if you change it at a national level this states are immediately going to have to change their displays Yeah right nice fix okay so project blitz is an interesting name like the Blitz of London and we're poor - yes and who is responsible for picking that name that's a great question who's behind project blitz yeah so project blitz is the name that these groups agreed on it spread there's there's two primary groups the Congressional prayer caucus Foundation which is the private associated with the Congressional prayer caucus Randy Forbes was the representative who started the Congressional prayer caucus he got bounced out of Congress and started actually I think he started a non-profit before that but the nonprofit really picked up and ran with this getting got into government idea and he teamed up with wall builders which is David Barton's outfit if you don't know David Barton congratulations your life is better than everybody else doesn't know it he's this terrible Christian propagandist who parades around as though he's an as an historian he's not his degree is from I think from Oral Roberts University in Christian education which to me means indoctrination when you're talking about degree from there anyway those two his group wall builders and the Congressional prayer caucus Foundation are the two primary groups who are in charge of project blitz and put together this this handbook and they chose the name project blitz and I agree that it is a very interesting choice of name and it definitely has those German connotations do it yeah well it also shows the intent of the the project which is to very suddenly throw all of this on to all the state legislature so it's like before you know what hit you this is already in all 15 states that's their supremacy and suddenness those are the two kind of words that come to mind when were talking about the Blitz right yeah I mean not known for his accurate historical knowledge David Barton probably got it from football because Jesus loves football right so one more question this is just fun has nothing to do with anything have you all watched the family on Netflix yet if so what do you think about it I know you haven't and I haven't Ryan I am I wished I could say I have I've seen the first few episodes and it's very compelling and I will be watching the rest I read Jeff's book like what he came out like in 2010 Jeff Sharlet on whose book the series is based it's a docu-series about sort of not so what's secret but you know exposed christian influence on our government and as I've been dying to watch it our travel schedules just been so insane we haven't had time to sit down and watch anything although I did my sister did force me to watch the Great British Bake Off or whatever that that shows called and I kind of got hooked on that and so before we sign off today we wanted to encourage everyone to watch go and watch the season premiere of free thought matters that is FFRF TV talk show program Annie Laurie Gaylor and Andrew interviewed representative Jared Hoffman of California he is a co-founder of the Congressional free thought caucus and he is the only as of right now openly non religious member of Congress so it's a really refreshing interview you don't hear politicians talk like representative Huffman so really cool yeah so watch it we're gonna check out a short clip here there is this other goal of the Congressional free thought caucus and that's to work to base policy on science and there seems to be this intimate tie and you've spoken about it between science and secularism in state church separation it's very important and that's why frankly we've got a couple of scientists that are part of the freethought caucus we are constantly invited to make policy based on things other than science and reason and facts climate change is you know maybe the greatest example of this honestly this is no exaggeration I have colleagues across the aisle who just can't get their head around why we would make policy based on future generations to come when you know the rapture is probably just around the corner they literally think that way and they talk that way pretty scary stuff you see it in foreign policy all the time to some extent the fervent militaristic support of Israel the constant push for war in the Middle East some of my colleagues advance these ideas because they want to bring on the end of days and in a great glorious Armageddon that will hasten the coming of the Messiah this is dangerous crazy stuff and belongs nowhere in our public policy it is so awesome to hear a representative talk like this this aired on Sunday night if you were fortunate enough to be in Chicago Denver Houston LA Madison Minneapolis New York Phoenix Portland Sacramento Seattle or Washington you could see this when it airs it's actually up on our YouTube channel and Facebook right now I really encourage everybody to go watch the entire thing it was a fascinating interview and it's so it really is so refreshing is the right word you don't hear politicians talk like this and I will also say that the right-wing media has picked this up he was on this they're playing clips on Fox News now so go find representative Huffman on Twitter and on Facebook and give him a little love because he's gonna be hearing it from the other side and we don't want him to go away without ton of hate mail we'd like to him pre hit team for him to hear some thank you right right right so check out free thought matters and it's our weekly talkshow we have lots of cool guests you can and that was the season premiere for this year it's great yeah so keep up with freethought matters and that's all for asking atheist today one way you can help FFRF is by contacting government officials who violate the law so if you want to receive FFRF Action Alerts on your smartphone text FFRF to five to eight eight six data rates may apply again that's FFRF text it to five to eight eight six and we invite you to become a member of FFRF please help us in our vital work to keep state and church separate and to educate the public about non-theism visit our webpage at ffrs org or you can phone us at [Music]

Channel: Freedom From Religion Foundation

Views: 6,124

Keywords: In God We Trust, In God We Trust Moto, National Motto, Religious Motto, In God we Trust origins, In God We Trust Money, In God We Trust Religious, Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, Atheism, Atheist

Id: Kp1P54u_HS8

Length: 35min 41sec (2141 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 04 2019