Charity
02-01-2006, 10:51 AM
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=cover vAlign=center align=left width="50%" height=40>February Headlines 2006 (http://www.coralridge.org/imp/default.aspx)</TD><TD class=cover vAlign=center align=right width="50%">Next Story (http://www.coralridge.org/imp/impact02062.aspx)</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE id=table5 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left width=420><TABLE id=table6 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=170 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>http://www.coralridge.org/imp/images/img-02061a.jpg</TD></TR><TR><TD>http://www.coralridge.org/imp/images/img-spacer.gif</TD></TR><TR><TD class=caption>at risk: Michael Newdow’s lawsuit challenging the national motto, “In God We Trust,” may lead to its removal from American currency and elsewhere, including from above the Speaker’s dais in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives. (Newscom) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Newdow Attacks
“In God We Trust”
He’s back. Turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court in his bid to remove “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, atheist Michael Newdow is at it again. He has returned to federal court with two lawsuits—one to remove God from the Pledge, and another filed in November to erase “In God We Trust” from our currency.
A federal district judge ruled for Newdow on the Pledge suit in September, citing a 2002 decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the words “under God” render the Pledge unconstitutional. That ruling will be appealed to the 9th Circuit, which may once more rule against the Pledge and create one more opportunity for the Supreme Court to resolve the issue. The Court sidestepped Newdow’s original Pledge suit by dismissing it in 2004 on technical grounds, without addressing the merits of his claim.
Newdow Optimistic
In Newdow’s other suit to eliminate America’s national motto, he has embraced an even more ambitious undertaking. He is optimistic about the outcome.
“I think when I win this case, I’m going to win it on RFRA,” said Newdow, referring to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA requires the presence of a “compelling” state interest to justify anything that “substantially burdens” religious freedom.
“I think they’re going to have a heck of a time,” said Newdow of efforts to defend the motto. “Thank you Congress; there has to be a compelling interest. Why don’t you tell me the compelling interest about having God as our motto?”
“In God We Trust” has been on America’s money since 1864, when it was first added to the two-cent coin during the Civil War. Congress mandated in 1955 that it appear on all coins and currency and made “In God We Trust” our national motto in 1956.
All of that is unconstitutional, according to the Rev. Dr. Newdow, an emergency room physician with a law degree. Newdow is also the founder of his own atheistic “church,” the First Amendmist Church of True Science, of which he is a self-styled “Grand Lubitz.”
<TABLE class=co2 id=table7 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=middle>“We better take this one seriously,” said constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus. “Otherwise, we’re going to see a very strong erosion of the references to God at the federal level.”</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Newdow charges in his brief that it is “deeply offensive” for the government to advocate what he “specifically decries.” Not only is he offended, he alleges a long list of other grievances in his suit. The motto turns him into a “political outsider,” forces him to pay tax dollars for a religious notion, infringes his right to exercise his religion, and violates his rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as his free speech and equal protection rights.
But does the motto impose an obligation on him to believe in God? “No,” Newdow acknowledged in an interview.
Life’s Mission
For Newdow, a coin collector from childhood, the words “In God We Trust” are the original source of his anti-God legal activism. He writes in his brief that he was looking at his collection during Thanksgiving 1997 “when he again noticed ‘In God We Trust’ on all of his coins and currency. That phrase—which he had always considered offensive—struck an especially disharmonious chord that day and triggered the efforts that will likely, to a large extent, define this man’s life.”
The problem with the motto, he claimed, is that it “places the government on one side in the quintessential theological debate: Does God exist? This is forbidden under the Federal Constitution.”
“That would be news to the First Congress,” said Dr. Kennedy. “The same Congress that in 1789 passed the First Amendment, which Mr. Newdow relies on to eliminate the motto, immediately afterwards asked President George Washington to declare a day of public thanksgiving and prayer—to God. The Congress responsible for the First Amendment was itself not neutral on the question of God’s existence.”
According to Christian constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus, the text of the Constitution is not silent on the question of God’s existence, either. It states that it was, “Done in http://www.coralridge.org/imp/images/img-02061c.gifconvention ... in the year of our Lord” 1787. Newdow dismissed that reference to Jesus Christ as a “term of art,” but Titus called it “a very significant statement in light of the fact that, contemporaneously, the French were jettisoning the Christian calendar” during the French Revolution.
Whether Newdow will win is unknown, but the fact that he is bringing this suit in the 9th U.S. Circuit, where the Pledge has already been ruled unconstitutional, greatly improves his chances of vetoing the desire of millions to acknowledge God in our currency.
Serious Threat
Titus, who helped Roy Moore defend an Alabama display of the Ten Commandments, said Christians have in the past failed to respond quickly to attacks on references to God in public life. “We better take this one seriously,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to see a very strong erosion of the references to God at the federal level.”
However the courts may rule, Newdow’s campaign does not sit well with the American public. A Fox News poll in November 2005 found that 81 percent of Americans disagree with the statement that religion should be “excluded from public life.” Some 90 percent want “under God” kept in the Pledge of Allegiance and 93 percent want to keep “In God We Trust” on our monies.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>more
http://www.coralridge.org/imp/impact02061.aspx
“In God We Trust”
He’s back. Turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court in his bid to remove “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance, atheist Michael Newdow is at it again. He has returned to federal court with two lawsuits—one to remove God from the Pledge, and another filed in November to erase “In God We Trust” from our currency.
A federal district judge ruled for Newdow on the Pledge suit in September, citing a 2002 decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the words “under God” render the Pledge unconstitutional. That ruling will be appealed to the 9th Circuit, which may once more rule against the Pledge and create one more opportunity for the Supreme Court to resolve the issue. The Court sidestepped Newdow’s original Pledge suit by dismissing it in 2004 on technical grounds, without addressing the merits of his claim.
Newdow Optimistic
In Newdow’s other suit to eliminate America’s national motto, he has embraced an even more ambitious undertaking. He is optimistic about the outcome.
“I think when I win this case, I’m going to win it on RFRA,” said Newdow, referring to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. RFRA requires the presence of a “compelling” state interest to justify anything that “substantially burdens” religious freedom.
“I think they’re going to have a heck of a time,” said Newdow of efforts to defend the motto. “Thank you Congress; there has to be a compelling interest. Why don’t you tell me the compelling interest about having God as our motto?”
“In God We Trust” has been on America’s money since 1864, when it was first added to the two-cent coin during the Civil War. Congress mandated in 1955 that it appear on all coins and currency and made “In God We Trust” our national motto in 1956.
All of that is unconstitutional, according to the Rev. Dr. Newdow, an emergency room physician with a law degree. Newdow is also the founder of his own atheistic “church,” the First Amendmist Church of True Science, of which he is a self-styled “Grand Lubitz.”
<TABLE class=co2 id=table7 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top align=middle>“We better take this one seriously,” said constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus. “Otherwise, we’re going to see a very strong erosion of the references to God at the federal level.”</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Newdow charges in his brief that it is “deeply offensive” for the government to advocate what he “specifically decries.” Not only is he offended, he alleges a long list of other grievances in his suit. The motto turns him into a “political outsider,” forces him to pay tax dollars for a religious notion, infringes his right to exercise his religion, and violates his rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as his free speech and equal protection rights.
But does the motto impose an obligation on him to believe in God? “No,” Newdow acknowledged in an interview.
Life’s Mission
For Newdow, a coin collector from childhood, the words “In God We Trust” are the original source of his anti-God legal activism. He writes in his brief that he was looking at his collection during Thanksgiving 1997 “when he again noticed ‘In God We Trust’ on all of his coins and currency. That phrase—which he had always considered offensive—struck an especially disharmonious chord that day and triggered the efforts that will likely, to a large extent, define this man’s life.”
The problem with the motto, he claimed, is that it “places the government on one side in the quintessential theological debate: Does God exist? This is forbidden under the Federal Constitution.”
“That would be news to the First Congress,” said Dr. Kennedy. “The same Congress that in 1789 passed the First Amendment, which Mr. Newdow relies on to eliminate the motto, immediately afterwards asked President George Washington to declare a day of public thanksgiving and prayer—to God. The Congress responsible for the First Amendment was itself not neutral on the question of God’s existence.”
According to Christian constitutional attorney Herbert W. Titus, the text of the Constitution is not silent on the question of God’s existence, either. It states that it was, “Done in http://www.coralridge.org/imp/images/img-02061c.gifconvention ... in the year of our Lord” 1787. Newdow dismissed that reference to Jesus Christ as a “term of art,” but Titus called it “a very significant statement in light of the fact that, contemporaneously, the French were jettisoning the Christian calendar” during the French Revolution.
Whether Newdow will win is unknown, but the fact that he is bringing this suit in the 9th U.S. Circuit, where the Pledge has already been ruled unconstitutional, greatly improves his chances of vetoing the desire of millions to acknowledge God in our currency.
Serious Threat
Titus, who helped Roy Moore defend an Alabama display of the Ten Commandments, said Christians have in the past failed to respond quickly to attacks on references to God in public life. “We better take this one seriously,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re going to see a very strong erosion of the references to God at the federal level.”
However the courts may rule, Newdow’s campaign does not sit well with the American public. A Fox News poll in November 2005 found that 81 percent of Americans disagree with the statement that religion should be “excluded from public life.” Some 90 percent want “under God” kept in the Pledge of Allegiance and 93 percent want to keep “In God We Trust” on our monies.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>more
http://www.coralridge.org/imp/impact02061.aspx