Lines drawn 'In God We Trust' debate in Colusa

Colusa officials have been asked to reconsider hanging the nation’s motto, “In God We Trust,” inside City Hall.

The City Council last month agreed not to pursue the request from Bakersfield City Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan, who feels hanging the national motto would promote patriotism.

Council members feared the controversial issue would offend some people and could potentially land the city in court.

But the Rev. Tom Tripp, a Colusa minister, wonders if those very words can appear over the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court and above the speaker’s dais in the House of Representatives, then why not City Hall?

“The motto provides a vital check and balance to our nation,” Tripp told the council on Tuesday.

Robin Rauch of Colusa expressed a similar concern that the City Council is not following the will of the majority.

“Perhaps it is time to have a non-binding vote of the people on this issue,” Rauch said. “This would bring the debate to a conclusion and the council could then follow the will of the people.”

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Sullivan, founder of In God We Trust, Inc., said the issue is absolutely about what the majority of people want and believe.

“We can’t base our vote on fear that we might offend someone,” Sullivan said. “The minority does not have the right to rule the majority.”

Sullivan said she is determined to get every city in America to proudly display the motto as a way to keep America’s identity as a country that loves God.

“That is what our founding fathers believed,” she said. “By not displaying the motto, we have slipped as a country, and that is a shame.”

On the other hand, Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of Freedom from Religion Foundation, said Thursday that it is not just about the numbers.

Gaylor believes that while the 18 percent of Californians who identify themselves as non-religious is a large number of people to alienate at City Hall, the “In God We Trust” movement is more about promoting a religious agenda than being patriotic.

“It’s proselytizing,” Gaylor said. “That is not the role of government. (The motto) not even true. It should say “In God Some of Us Trust.”

Colusa City Manager Jan McClinctok said people on both sides of the issue have contacted City Hall, and Councilwoman Kay Hosmer has vowed to put the issue back on the agenda.

Both sides base their arguments on documents and letters of the “founding fathers,” although the national motto was not adopted until 1956, at the height of McCarthyism, a term describing the near decade-long period of intense anti-Communist sentiment in the United States that lasted through the late-1950s.

Tripp said that while much is made of that fact, the roots of “In God We Trust” do go back to the founding of the nation.

The Declaration of Independence, he said, concludes with the words, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” “If the sentiment is good enough for our Declaration of Independence, is it not good enough for the wall of our City Hall?” asked Tripp.

Quoting John Adams, Rauch said, “Our Constitution was designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

Gaylor, however, said the Constitution never mentions God, and that the founding fathers embedded a separation between church and state in the First Amendment.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” a sentiment also well-rooted in their actions and writings.

Adams wrote later in life, “Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’”

It was also during Adam’s administration that the Senate unanimously approved the Treaty of Peace and

Friendship between the U.S. and Tripoli, which states in Article 11 that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”

Colusa resident Vicky Leonard said that the City Council should not cower to a well-funded group of people trying to terrorize Christianity from public life.

“The belief in a creator can’t be usurped by a government,” Leonard said.

As for the city fearing legal action, Sullivan said because “In God We Trust” is the nation’s motto, adopted by Congress, there is nothing to challenge.

“There are now 65 cities in California and more than 70 cities in the nation displaying the motto, and not one has been challenged,” she said. “The phrase is ceremonial and patriotic, not religious.”

Gaylor too admits that as the nation’s motto, it would be a difficult challenge, but that didn’t make it right for the government to continue the sentiments of a Congress that was more intent on challenging a "godless" Soviet Union in the 1950s by ignoring the beliefs of so many other people.

“It’s most troubling,” she said.

Gaylor said the Freedom From Religion Foundation has several legal pursuits occupying their efforts at the moment, but that a challenge to the “In God We Trust” movement in the future has not been ruled out, nor an effort to have the motto changed.

The foundation was victorious in their pursuit to have the National Day of Prayer ruled unconstitutional, Gaylor said, although that decision is now under appeal by the Obama Administration.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb in Wisconsin ruled in April that the sole purpose of the National Day of Prayer to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer was an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function, and violates the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

The National Day of Prayer was also established by Congress in the 1950s, and in 1988 was set as the first Thursday in May.

President Obama issued a National Day of Prayer proclamation, but held no interfaith observance at the White House, as President George W. Bush had done.

A lawsuit by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow over the use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of

Allegiance in public schools is also making its way through the courts.

LETTER:

As the Colusa City Council considers the matter of printing or not printing the words, “In God We Trust,” on the wall of the City Hall, I suggest that there are good reasons to include these words.
There is national precedent. Since 1956, this phrase has officially been the motto of our nation. The words have appeared on the money of our nation since 1864. The phrase is even carved above the entry to the Supreme Court. If it can appear on our coins and currency and above the entry to the Supreme Court, cannot the motto of our nation appear on the wall of our City Hall?
There is historical precedent. Much has been made of the fact that the phrase was not adopted as the motto of our nation until midway through the 20th century, but its roots go back to the founding of our nation. The final stanza of our national anthem includes these words: “And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’” 
Moreover, the Declaration of Independence concludes with these words: “…with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” The national motto, “In God We Trust,” is but a simplified summary of the Declaration’s affirmation, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” If the sentiment is good enough for our Declaration of Independence, is it not good enough for the wall of our City Hall?
The motto provides a vital check and balance to our nation. Sixty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a French sociologist, Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote, “I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” 
The motto, “In God We Trust,” is a great reminder to us that the greatness of our nation (or our city) is not so much in our resources or accomplishments as in our character which is shaped by the Maker of our souls.
Our first president, George Washington, said as much in his first inaugural address:
“We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained.”
Since the “Father of our nation” recognized that the success of our nation is dependent upon our regard for “the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained,” would not the inclusion of the national motto on the wall of our City Hall help us to remember and to honor that which makes our nation great?

Tom Tripp
Colusa