[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/13/in-god-we-trust-lawsuit_n_2867227.html]Article[/url]
[quote]The Freedom From Religion Foundation mounted a lawsuit against the U.S. Treasury Department and other government officials this week, claiming that they are discriminating against nonbelievers by including the phrase "In God We Trust" on the nation's currency.
"Our government is prohibited from endorsing one religion over another but also prohibited from endorsing religion over nonreligion. The placement of a monotheistic ideal on our nation's currency violates this stricture and is therefore unconstitutional," FFRF Co-President Dan Barker said in a statement.
Along with 19 other plaintiffs, the FFRF argues in the lawsuit that they "are forced to proselytize -- by an Act of Congress -- for a deity they don't believe in whenever they handle money."[/quote]
I fully agree with this lawsuit. I think that it's pretty clear that printing "In God We Trust" on money violates the idea of separation of church and state. A secular entity should not be spreading the idea of trust in a deity (any deity), especially not through something that everyone has to use.
This idea is not anti-religious. It is the same principle as to why I don't learn about human anatomy in my Shakespeare class. It's not that there's anything wrong with learning about anatomy, that class just isn't the time or place for it. Something printed by the government is not the place to declare that "we" (whoever that refers to) "trust in" a deity, when that is not true in many cases.
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Was going to do a long, well thought-out response supporting this action, but decided that my favorite game developer's Internet forum was not the place to do it. Freedom of religion or nonreligion is an extremely important liberty that many in the world do not have, and it should be taken seriously. It is not any government's place to promote or suppress any religious beliefs, or nonreligious as the case may be.