Cambria D. Queen wrote a law article (Arizona Summit Law School) titled
Is God in the United States? A PDF is available on SSRN at
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2382189.
I emailed her the following comments in rebuttal:
I am
disappointed with your historical revisionism, faux legal analysis and improper
citations.
First, the
term "God" is inherently religious and its use by government in the
manner your article supports necessarily violates the Establishment Clause of
the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The failure in most instances of the Supreme Court to recognize this
is reflective of the Court's infidelity to the Constitution and pandering to
the majority.
Second,
historical revisionism permeates your article. For example, I would note that
the insertion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance has nothing
to do with patriotism and everything to do with religion -- specifically, it
was an anti-Atheism slogan promoted by the Catholic organization Knights of
Columbus. The organization was initially unsuccessful in getting inserted into
the Pledge in 1952, but was ultimate successful in 1954.
Similarly,
legislation to make "In God We Trust" was promoted by Christian
evangelicals against Atheism. Having lost the war when the Constitution made
the U.S. a secular nation, the Christian Right continue to fight battles in
their effort to make the U.S. a Christian Nation.
Third, your
use of Lemon v. Kurtzman is ironic. The 8th Circuit in Plattsmouth withheld
rendering its decision until after a decision in Van Orden v. Perry. As you may
be aware, there was no majority decision in Van Orden. Justice Breyer cast the
deciding vote and his opinion primarily rested on the fact that the Fraternal
Order of Eagles' donated monument had been on the Texas state capitol grounds
for 40 years before being challenged. It did NOT rest on a bona fide Lemon
analysis. To the contrary, Breyer switched sides in McCreary County which
applied a Lemon analysis in holding that the display of the Ten Commandments in
the McCreary County Courthouse violated the Establishment Clause. Thus
Plattsmouth should be viewed as Van Orden II -- as well as, a misapplication of
Lemon.
Fourth,
footnote 28 "McCreary Cnty. v. ACLU of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 887-89
(2005)." fails to note that pages 887-89 are from Justice Scalia's
dissenting opinion. As cited, the reference implies that it is from Justice
Souter's majority opinion.
Fifth, you
failed to site the majority holdings in McCreary and Stone v. Graham (1980).
Those cases held that the display of the Ten Commandments on public property
violated the Establishment Clause. Moreover, the Supreme Court recently
declined certiorari in the Mount Soledad and Utah cross cases in which appeals
courts held that the display of Christian crosses on public property violate
the Establishment Clause.
And as a final
point, I am disappointed that you failed to advance Thomas Jefferson's separation
of church and state principle. If Jefferson were on the Supreme Court today he
would surely hold "under God" in the Pledge, the U.S. motto of
"In God we trust", Ten Commandment Monuments and Christian Crosses on
public property, etc. violate of the First Amendment.
