Eight members of the Allegheny County Pennsylvania county council do not want God in their county.
Eight Democratic Party members of the council voted against a display that would have included “In God We Trust” as part of the display. The national motto was to be included on the display with the Pennsylvania state motto of “Virtue, Liberty and Independence” and the one of the currency mottos, “E Pluribus Unum.”
The virulent anti-Christian group Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the council threatening the county because of the potential measure. Democratic County Executive Rich Fitzgerald also openly has an anti-Christian attitude.
“[It’s] a movement by the right-wing evangelical Christians across the country basically to impose Christianity,” Fitzgerald said.
“You should tell the county executive he should get educated on the national motto,” Pennsylvania Rep. Rick Saccone told the Pittsburgh Tribune. “It’s their ignorance that causes them to fear having God in a government place. They shouldn’t fear the name of God or the word ‘God’ in our government.”
Residents of Gainesville, Georgia are telling an anti-Christian organization to mind their own business and to quit attempting to bully their children.
The anti-Christian American Humanist Association has been harassing the Chestatee High School officials and students because of the football team’s staff participating in team prayers and for religious messages appearing at times in team documents.
Over 200 people showed up for an unplanned prayer rally in the middle of the football field Wednesday morning with a simple message: stay out of our town.
“I am a mom of two of the football players on the CHS football team and I consider it an honor and a privilege to have my boys on a team that is led by men that believe and trust in God,” a woman said. “I think it’s a shame for one person to try and take that away from them.”
The anti-Christianists say that offenses include coaches “having clasped hands with players” while prayers were taking place and that cheerleaders once held a banner that said “Iron sharpens iron, Proverbs 21:17.”
“The liberal atheist interest groups trying to bully Chestatee High School kids say they have a reason to believe that expressions of religious freedom are ‘not an isolated event’ in Northeast Georgia,” Congressman Doug Collins wrote in a statement to Fox News. “They’re right. In Hall County and throughout Georgia’s 9th district, we understand and respect the Constitution and cherish our right to worship in our own way.”
Collins said it was interesting that the American Humanist Association is focusing on harassing Christian students at the same time Christians are being killed in Iraq for simply being Christians.
“It’s utterly disgusting that while innocent lives are being lost in Iraq and other places at the hands of radical religious terrorists, a bunch of Washington lawyers are finding the time to pick on kids in Northeast Georgia,” he said.
County commissioners in Mobile County have stood up to anti-Christianists furious that they posted a plaque with the national motto, “In God We Trust.”
The Mobile County Commission had voted in June 2-1 to display the national motto in the Government Plaza despite the outcry of anti-Christianists who said that any reference to God is automatically endorsing Christianity.
“I strongly urge the commission to reject the display ‘In God We Trust’,” anti-Christianist Amanda Scott told the Commissioners. “It would only serve to divide Mobile on religion when we’re already so divided on other issues.”
Commissioner Jerry Carl said that the word “God” is universal to multiple faiths and that it doesn’t designate a specific faith.
Anti-Christianists and other groups responded by attempting to pay for plaques that would promote their views over everyone else but the Commissioners rejected them all, instructing those who have an issue with the national motto to take it up with Congress.
A federal judge has ordered the city of Bloomfield, New Mexico to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from city property in response to a lawsuit from anti-Christianists.
U.S. District Judge James A. Parker issued a ruling that the 3,000 pound monument violated the First Amendment because its existence meant a government “establishment of religion.”
“In view of the circumstances surrounding the context, history, and purpose of the Ten Commandments monument, it is clear that the City of Bloomfield has violated the Establishment Clause because its conduct in authorizing the continued display of the monument on City property has had the primary or principal effect of endorsing religion,” he wrote in his ruling.
The monument was placed in 2011 after the city passed a resolution allowing private citizens the right to post historical displays at the Bloomfield City Hall.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the city to make sure the reference to Judaism and Christianity was removed from public view.
“I am surprised and had never really considered the judge ruling against it because it’s a historical document just like the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights,” Mayor Scott Eckstein said to the Farmington Daily Times. “The intent from the beginning was that the lawn was going to be used for historical purposes, and that’s what the council voted on.”
The Supreme Court declined in a 7-2 decision to hear the appeal of a school district that held their graduation ceremonies inside a church building, allowing a lower court ruling to stand that holding such an event inside a church is unconstitutional.
The anti-Christian group Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit in 1990 against the Elmbrook, Wisconsin School District which had been holding their graduation ceremonies inside a non-denominational church facility. The anti-Christianists said the mere existence of Christian symbols in the building meant the school was promoting Christianity over all other religions.
While multiple lower courts ruled in favor of the school district, the anti-Christian group continued to file appeals until the full 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overruled a three-judge 7th Circuit panel and ruled in their favor. The Supreme Court before their formal refusal to hear the case shelved the case for two years.
Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from the majority. Justice Scalia wrote that while a school district may have to act to soothe angry people, it doesn’t mean it’s the constitution’s job to soothe hurt feelings. The justices also noted the flawed 7th Circuit ruling was in conflict with the Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, which stated that mere offense does not equate to coercion.