DSYoung,
could you suggest a good textbook on constitutional law for me?
-Ben
True. I left 20 years ago. It seems I started a mass exodus.
I was just reading a newspaper article about this decision, and it noted that the original judge upheld the motto because by talking about “God,” it can apply not just to Christians, but to Muslims and Jews too. So, ignoring for the moment the fact that it’s a quote from the NT, let’s look at what this is saying.
As long as you include three major religious groups, it’s okay to trample all over everybody else.
Gee, thanks!
Quixotic78 said:
No, “Internet” is not in the Constitution, at least not in my copy. Neither is “radio,” “television,” “book,” or “newspaper.” But “freedom of speech and the press” is, and that pretty much covers it.
I remember (1956?) when the word came down from on high (!) that we schoolchildren were now to modify our ritualistic reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance to include the phrase “under God.” But I was too young and too bible-belt indoctrinated to have any objection (wish I could live it all over again – I’d love to initiate a test case). Does anyone remember if there was any serious controversy over this at the time?
Ben, there are several that can be used, and really you should have at least two sources, because often the view of the book regarding controversial areas of the law will depend on the opinions of the author(s).
I still use my copy of Constitutional Law (2d ed.) by Nowak, Rotunda and Young (hehehe, must be the name… 
) published in 1983, which was the book I chose while in law school to help me with Con Law. But I also have Lawrence Tribe’s treatise on Con Law, not because I particularly agree with Larry on interpretation, but because it never hurts to have a different viewpoint, and Larry is about as different on many things as it gets (Mr. Tribe, for those who don’t know, is a noted liberal thinker, who approaches some aspects of constitutional law differently than most other commentators). Coincidentally, he recently put out a new edition of his book, in which some of his opinions have been modified (most notably, I’m told, his opinion on the Second Amendment). I’d recommend purchasing that; you can likely get it through Barnes and Noble; if not, go to a local law school book store.
I don’t really know what modern hornbooks on Con Law schools are using. I supplement my old book through the web, primarily, often using the wonderful resource of the summation of constitutional law cases found at Senate Summary of Con Law Cases.
Quixotic78, thanks for the comments. 
I would like to point out that one should never shy from theoretical discussion of constitutional law, that is, what it should be as opposed to what it is. Had no one done so with regard to equal protection, Plessy v. Ferguson might still be the law of the land. And I apologize for any spelling difficulties; I have always suffered from some arcane vowel shift that has yet to make it into dialect.
Quix and Ben – You seem to be OK with the idea that the Constitution means whatever our judges say it does. Then, how can you complain when the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals hands down a decision?
I would guess that you may think the Ohio motto is bad for society, regardless of the intricacies of Constitutional interpretation. If so, I’d be interested in your reasons.
The Ohio state and U.S. national mottoes are bad for society because they implicitly declare that Americans who don’t believe in God aren’t real Americans, or that they’re second-class citizens at best. “With white skin, all things are possible” or “In the Caucasian Race We Trust” wouldn’t hurt anyone–sticks and stones and all that–but they obviously wouldn’t fly, now would they?
How about “With Brains, All Things Are Possible”?
Oh, wait. That would make these religious right nuts second class citizens, wouldn’t it?
Ya see, one of the problems with changing it is that we Ohioans just paid for a humongously expensive seal with the motto at our statehouse. Thus, they don’t really want to admit that they wasted oodles of cash. Indeed, we are stupid.
Well, I can complain about the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision because it isn’t the end of the line; the Supreme Court of the US can still intervene. Furthermore, it’s like what DSYoungEsq said in the last paragraph of his most recent post:
So, assume that the SCOTUS does pick this case up. If they then rule that the motto is unconstitutional, well, case closed, off comes the motto. If they rule that the motto is fine, well, I’ll continue to engage in the “theoretical discussion of constitutional law.” And, in my mind, having a religious motto is a bad thing. Not that I have any alternative to the Lemon test, but I still reserve my American right to complain that something just doesn’t sit well without knowing the ultimate answer. My first thought was, “Well, government should just avoid religion altogether,” but then I was reminded of the secularization atrocities commited by the likes of Lenin, Stalin, and Ataturk (the last in Turkey).
As for why I think this motto is bad, you can my earlier posts, where I said that it’s not too far a stretch to go from persecuting mottoes to persecuting spoken words to persecuting actions. Or, you can read what Justice O’Connor had to say about government endorsement of religion (Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), originally posted by DSYoungEsq):
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I’d still really like to hear FriendofGod’s thoughts on a motto such as “God is Dead” or “Life is Suffering.”
Finally, I’d like to reiterate David B’s statement in the link I posted earlier. Are there bigger issues out there? Probably. Does that mean that we should ignore this one? Probably not.
Quix
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A valid point, but I think my complaints are typically that such-and-such decision is in violation of longstanding principles of jurisprudence. If I were opposed to those principles, I’d be making very different complaints from the ones I am making now. (For example, I might argue that the Constitution were, to borrow Adams’ famous phrase, little more than a “menstrous rag” and that it needed to be rewritten to reflect a more enlightened political stance.)
Rather than answer your question directly, (since Quix has already addressed it well,) I’d like to explain my (relatively uninformed) opinion of how SOCAS (or something akin to it) is inherent in the establishment clause.
Typically when people like WB or FoG or other acronym people want to argue for a minimalist approach to religious freedom, they argue that SOCAS isn’t in the Constitution, and that the First Amendment really just forbids the de jure estabishment of a state religion.
However, such a prohibition would be completely toothless, since the government could easily create a de facto state church or state religion. Instead of doing like England and passing a law saying, “The Anglican Church is the Official Church of England” (or words to that effect,) they could put “United in the Anglican Church” on our money and give special subsidies and tax breaks to a particular church. The same goes for having “In Jesus We Trust” on money- in effect, Christianity would become “an establishment of religion,” even though it isn’t a specific denomination like Anglicanism. Stretching the argument further, any favoritism of the government towards any religion or set of religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in the case of “In God We Trust,”) would constitute a sort of ecumenical establishment of religion, forbidden by the First Amendment. In effect, what you end up with is not SOCAS per se so much as the Lemon test. I personally would argue that total SOCAS is the only way to fully comply with Lemon, since (for example) giving tax breaks to “all religions” without favoritism means that the government gets to decide who is a real religion and who isn’t, and that results in very excessive entanglement if you ask me. (Witness, too, the way that the IRS forced the Mormon Church to change its doctrine on Blacks in the seventies by threatening to withdraw tax exempt status.)
I would also add that “In God We Trust” and other religious mottoes are offensive to the degree that they are products of religious hypocrisy. The same people who whine about how evil atheists are for trying to get “God” off of money would probably quite literally rise up in armed revolt if “In Gods We Trust” were put on our money. Can you imagine the reaction if “Do What Thou Wilt” were put on dollar bills, and written into the Pledge of Allegiance? Bear in mind, too, that in the hands of people like FoG, Christianity becomes a religion of torture and revenge (ie hell,) and genocide (ie the Amalekites,) and is thus as offensive to many atheists as Thelema is to fundamentalist Christians.
Last but not least, I would argue that by putting “In God We Trust” on money, the govt is putting words in people’s mouths. In the Supreme Court case of Doohickey vs. Whatshisface, the Court found that the New Hampshire slogan “Live Free Or Die” could be blacked out by (IIRC) Seventh-Day Adventists who objected to it. I suppose this isn’t such a strong legal argument (unless it’s illegal for me to deface the slogan,) but it does get at why it annoys me.
-Ben
I know a lot of church people who are thrileld by this.
They were praying for it, and consider it a victory.
I am a christian, and in Ohio, but they are running us out cause I voted for Nader. (kidding)(slightly)
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by quixotic78 *
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Quix & Ben – Thanks for your answers. Your point has some theoretical validity. Things are worse in Great Britain, where a person’s first name is routinely referred to as his/her “Christian name.”
On the other hand, it seems to me that some peoples’ belief in a non-existent God encourages good social behavior, which I appreciate.
E.g., I buy a lot of outdoor equipment from a mail order house founded by people with a partiular Christian faith. Their beliefs make them a bit more likely to be honest and fair in their dealings, so I’m happy to deal with them.
My impression is that regular church-goers are less likely to commit various crimes; that’s fine with me, even though I don’t agree with their faith.
Well, I for one am not prepared to have the state support and encourage particular religious beliefs in order to confer some quite possibly imaginary social benefit. The history of that particular idea has not been a very happy one.
I think that the question of whether religion enforces morality is a difficult one. Overall, Christians seem to be less moral than atheists, if only slightly. One survey (which I don’t have handy, but I can try to dig it up) shows that recent converts to Christianity are much more likely to do drugs, etc. etc. The states with the highest churchgoing rates tend to be the ones with the highest murder rates. And, of course, not too long ago there was a case where a march for religious tolerance was stoned by a group of Christians. And, of course, there are people like Fred Phelps. Apparently Gary Busey recently converted to Born-Again Christianity, and promptly ended up in jail for beating his wife.
In a few cases, the religion is clearly directly contributing to the immoral behavior (as in the case of Phelps.) In other cases… well, correlation doesn’t imply causation. For example:
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Religiosity and blue-collar crime probably correlate with each other only because both correlate with poverty.
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The causality might run backwards: since Gary Busey can’t get his act together, he converts to Christianity, and it doesn’t do him any good anyway. Christianity might be the only thing keeping these idiots in check! :yikes:
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Maybe most people start as Christians, and you have to have your act somewhat together in order to convert away from it. If most Americans were atheists, most Christians might act like Polycarp. It’s worth pointing out that atheists have one of the lowest divorce rates in America, and the more conservative a church gets, the higher its divorce rate seems to be. This suggests to me that atheists have something going for them. It’s not clear what that is, but it probably keeps them from shooting people.
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The correlation is so small that it’s hard to say anything intelligent about it at all, other than that you can’t simply say that more religious people are more trustworthy.
Of course, there are some counterexamples. The Nation of Islam has a very successful drug rehab program. If you are more troubled by heroin use than by the belief that white people are an evil genetic experiment devised by a mad Jewish scientist, and will soon be wiped out by the Mothership…
-Ben
That ought to be an interesting test of the President’s “faith-based initiative”.
Buck – Your explanation is based on bad consequences that you imagine could ensue. In a way, you’re correct; these consequences could conceivably happen.
However, I’ve seen the religious right argue that failing to post the Ten Commandments in schools could contirbute to a breakdown of morality, school shootings, etc. Their argument seems to have as much, or as little, force as yours does.
I would be more convinced if someone could evaluate the actual frequency of abuses that have been caused by religious slogans that were used by state or federal governments. To the best of my knowledge, no actual harm has been generated by the use of “In God We Trust” on coins or from posting the Ten Commandments in schools and court houses.
First off, having “In God We Trust” as a national motto is in itself wrong, since it tells all Americans who don’t trust in God that their religious beliefs have been deemed incorrect by an act of Congress, something which I think is alien to the spirit of our Constitution and laws. Putting the motto on the walls of a public schoolhouse is even worse, since it tells children that the beliefs of their families are incorrect and un-American. There is no analogy with the absence of the Ten Commandments; Christians would only be in a similar situation if atheists were posting copies of the Ten Commandments with a big red “X” over them in public buildings.
I don’t think it’s a huge leap to connect the motto “In God We Trust” with school prayer, especially since proponents of school prayer routinely make that link themselves. School prayer in turn has repeatedly led to conflict and to ostracism of dissident students; see the case of Lisa Herdahl for one example. There’s no great leap to think that posting religious mottoes in public schools won’t have a similar effect on dissenting students: they will either have to remain quiet about having the religious teachings of their families branded officially false, or they will have to speak up and face ostracism and harassment. It’s no great leap to see that the posting of mottoes will be followed by more active religious activities; dissident students will then have to go to the next level of not just ignoring official religious pronouncements which attack their and their families beliefs, but of having to decide whether or not to actively participate in those pronouncements (e.g., by bowing their heads and pretending to go along during the morning prayer) or to openly not participate, which will surely invite harassment.
Does any of this rise to the level of burning heretics? No. But it’s wrong, and there is absolutely no reason to do any of it: Christians have churches galore, Christian bookstores, Christian-owned private business and Christian homes; they even have Christian student groups meeting at public schools during non-curricular time. They don’t need to commandeer the public schools for Christian evangelism, and they have no right to do so.
Hardly, in fact, all the Ohians that I know personally are Jewish (Though that may have something to do with the fact that i only know 3 Ohians). On a more serious note, I have been informed by those 3 Ohians that in Cleveland and it’s suburbs, there is a relitivly (sp?) large Jewish population.
Outside of Cleveland, all bets are off.
This must be the reason the new Creation Museum is being built near Cincinnati. (Though it’s actually in Northern Kentucky.)