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Louisiana law requiring 'In God We Trust' to be displayed in classrooms goes into effect.
Public schools in Louisiana are now required to display the motto "In God We Trust" in all classrooms.
The law, known as HB8, was signed by Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards in June. The law went into effect on Aug. 1 and was authored by Rep. Dodie Horton, R-Haughton.
Each classroom is required to have the motto at minimum "displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least eleven inches by fourteen inches. The motto shall be the central focus of the poster or framed document and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font," according to HB8 Act 264 bill documents.
Elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schools will all be required to have the motto in each classroom.
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The author of the 2018 bill, Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, told the USA TODAY Network in May 2018 that they were “not pushing God on anybody. We’re incorporating it as part of the history of our nation."
"It’s our national motto, for goodness sake,” Barrow said at the time. “If it’s good enough to be on our money, it’s good enough to be in our schools.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/louisiana-law-requiring-in-god-we-trust-to-be-displayed-in-classrooms-goes-into-effect/ar-AA1eJYur
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VMA131Marine
(5,270 posts)Tickle
(4,131 posts)should you believe in a higher power.
That's your God. They're all equal. If you don't have a higher power than the word God is just a name with no meaning. How can that be offensive?
hunter
(40,691 posts)Those who worship this cruel, capricious, and frankly petty god, insist upon these empty affirmations as homage.
It's not my obligation to "trust" them or the gods they worship.
I do not believe in religious tolerance, most especially tolerance for the anti-intellectual religions that torture those of us who will not or can not conform to their twisted theologies. I've seen religions kill and maim people. I've got my own scars.
I'm glad I'm not a teacher in Louisiana. I wouldn't post that in my classroom. It's offensive to my own religious beliefs.
Happy Hoosier
(9,535 posts)You don't understand how it's offensive to an atheist that the STATE declares that "In God We Trust" while our Constitution decalres that we have no state religion and that all are equal under the law?
As an atheist, it's a reminder to me that I'm a second class citizen. That REAL Americans trust God. Oh sure, I';m allowed to be an atheist, but heh, "in God WE trust."
I'm gob-smacked that you can't see how that is incredibly offensive.
triron
(22,240 posts)hunter
(40,691 posts)"Trust in OUR god, or else..."
Sometimes the "or else" isn't implied. They'll actually beat you up. Let's see what they do to teachers who refuse this crap.
Presumably their god is the supernatural father of baby white Jesus born on christmas day, the same god Jewish and Islamic people worship even though they stubbornly refuse to recognize the supernatural character of his kid, putting them somewhere between The Good Christian People (preferably not Catholic) and dirty atheists who have rejected their god and can't ever be saved.
It's funny, I come at this from the angle opposite atheism. When I was a kid my mom, having had some bad experiences with the Catholic Church, was a Jehovah's Witness. The Witnesses reject the pledge of allegiance, as they reject "in god we trust." So do other religions that regard it, at the very best, as taking god's name in vain, and at worst a direct ticket to eternal damnation.
I never said the pledge in in school, I ignored it entirely. (This only contributed to my reputation as a weird kid.) My mom couldn't stay out of politics so she was eventually kicked out of the Witnesses and then we were Quakers. They are similarly opposed to such oaths.
My own religious journeys get wilder and wilder after that until here I am today as some kind of social justice warrior having more in common with "militant" atheists than I do any "True Believers."
Life is complicated.
Recycle_Guru
(2,973 posts)fuck these duckers for cramming god down our throats.
OAITW r.2.0
(32,146 posts)why would you trust the religious ideologues who force you to acknowledge this message?
Tickle
(4,131 posts)
Arazi
(8,887 posts)Regardless of their beliefs or lack thereof
Implemented by “religious ideologues who force you to acknowledge this message”.
(And the Dems associated with this are wrong too)
It's a statement of official policy. It is an endorsement of religion. And not just any religion, a particular category of religion.
In clear violation of the first Amendment.
walkingman
(10,865 posts)TexasDem69
(2,317 posts)And Governor Edwards is a Democrat. I’m not sure I see anything wrong with this
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)Separation of church and state ring a bell?
TexasDem69
(2,317 posts)Seems ok to me. It’s the national motto.
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)doesn't mean that THAT doesn't also violate the separation of church and state. ... There is zero evidence that god/s exist, and you're okay with brainwashing kids with this anti-science bullshit? People have the right to believe whatever silly fantasy they want, but they shouldn't aggressively push their baseless propaganda on others. What is the point of having this in classrooms? Why is it needed? Maybe to make the people who desperately want to believe that there really is a powerful fairy controlling the universe feel better about their delusions? Obviously "WE" don't all trust in "God." (God has proven itself to be a murderous psychopath; frankly, I'm glad that that monster is a fictional character, but that's another story).
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Who don't believe in, never mind waste time putting trust in, a fictional psychopath in the sky?
Ever think that they get tired of religious twaddle forced on people who have no choice about being in certain situations?
Did it even once occur to you that they get tired of blatant messages that they are somehow not welcome in their own country for not sharing in a particular religious belief, and that they know they are not respected at all over it?
Think you could manage that?
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)The Great Invisible Sky Wizard can go fuck itself. It’s a cruel monster. I’m glad it’s just a figment of human imagination.
Ms. Toad
(38,643 posts)That prohibition has been interpreted to not only bar sponsorshop of a specific religion, but also prohibits state sponsored (non-specific) theocracy over atheism.
Doesn't matter which party promotes it. It's wrong.
That said, it is probably constitutional. The reasoning is the opposite of why people want to impose it on others: that it is no longer religious in nature - it is simply ceremonial theism; a historical relic. I don't agree with that analysis, but if challenged it would likely be found constitutional.
no_hypocrisy
(54,908 posts)
DFW
(60,186 posts)The Pledge of Allegiance was composed in 1892 by a socialist baptist minister, who specified that the text of his pledge was not to be tampered with—a wish that history was not to grant him, as it was modified more than once. The last tampering was the addition of “under God,” also in 1954, if memory serves me well. It was never there when it was composed, and it was never the intention of its author to have it in there.
GenThePerservering
(3,379 posts)because it doesn't go back any farther than him, as far as I know.
Initech
(108,783 posts)
Tickle
(4,131 posts)The sponsor was a Democrat and the governor is a Democrat. I have not verified it but it's on this thread. I'm not a betting man but I bet they don't like the orange man
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)That doesn't mean that putting up this garbage isn't a form of trying to instill a religious fascist dictatorship.
Because it is.
TexasDem69
(2,317 posts)A religious fascist dictatorship? Like, exactly how, not just rhetoric?
Tickle
(4,131 posts)ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Because that's what the US has always been.
Freethinker65
(11,203 posts)EndlessWire
(8,103 posts)and dump the danged pledge of alliance for school children. An oath of allegiance is okay for military membership, but we are supposed to have separation of church and state, and this is only brainwashing. It serves no purpose whatsoever. It's stupid.
Let's put something about keeping the environment clean instead on our children's walls. But, not a chain of command where some asshole preacher can mess with people's minds later down the line after conditioning them.
DFW
(60,186 posts)When my elder daughter took a high school semester abroad, she elected to take it in the USA. She was born in Germany and grew up as a German.
I had totally forgotten about that antiquated ritual in US public schools. She remarked to me about the “strange ritual chanting” they did each morning. I had no idea what she meant, so I asked her what they chanted. She said they mostly mumbled, but it sounded like, “I spread the peaches.” This sounded completely nuts, but she obviously wasn’t making it up. I asked what else they did, and she said they all put their hands on their chests. Then I figured it out. I asked if they might be saying, “I pledge allegiance?” She said maybe, and what in the world did that mean, anyhow? Her English was good, but you just don’t use either word much in daily conversation. Germany, for obvious reasons, discourages exaggerated rituals of patriotism, and so the very concept of repeating something like that every day in school was completely foreign to her.
Maru Kitteh
(31,763 posts)The last I knew, even in the blood red states of Nebraska and Montana "the pledge" was a grade-school (K-6) thing. In the 70's. I think even that may have ended in the late 70's early 80's or maybe it was just at the teacher/school discretion because I only remember it being done in the lower grades at all.
Just, wow. Was that at a high-school somewhere?
DFW
(60,186 posts)1999, and she was 16 (11th grade).
It had been decades since I had attended an American public school, and I had totally forgotten that they do this, so I never told her about it. She was, as a result, completely mystified when they started doing it. She stood up with them, so as not to stand out, but she was too embarrassed to ask them what in the world they were doing, since it seemed so obvious to them. She waited to ask me afterward. I had gone with her to Dallas to enroll her, and get her started, so I stuck around for a couple of days. She had seen documentaries on German TV about Buddhist monasteries, so she thought it was some kind of ritual chanting.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)Of pledging to the flag. At least as far back as 2002, I remember visiting my step-siblings in San Antonio. My stepsister and I had the radio on while we made breakfast for the gathered clan, and the DJ announced that they would cut to one of the local schools for the reading of the pledge. The kids were bloody kindergartners!
I asked her what that was about, and she sighed. "The state requires school kids to say the pledge every day."
Once I recovered from the shock of it, I finally said, "Bloody hell, you've made enough money to quit your job and move someplace sane."
"As long as Papi's family is here, this is where we'll be. You know that." Papi is the pet name she has for her husband. Anyway, I realized that I'd stumbled over a long-simmering dispute between them about staying in Texas, and backed away, rather than inflame that hornet's nest further.
I will say that the enforced pledge didn't prevent my step-nephew from becoming a committed Communist. I didn't even know that the CPUSA existed anymore, but apparently it does.
Oneironaut
(6,300 posts)It’s creepy that we still force kids to do this.
Oneironaut
(6,300 posts)“UNDER GAWWWWD!” when at school events for their kids, reciting the pledge. How dare you!? /s
stuck in the middle
(821 posts)That belongs in a bar, not in a classroom.
Somebody needs to add “All others pay cash” to the bottom of the sign with a magic marker.
struggle4progress
(126,157 posts)able to read all four words of the motto by 2076!
Tickle
(4,131 posts)struggle4progress
(126,157 posts)Tickle
(4,131 posts)According to EDSource
Mr.Bill
(24,906 posts)I can see how these two things would go together. There are areas in California where you can live, access services, work and function without speaking English.
Takket
(23,715 posts)Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)Magic isn’t real.
Religion is poison for the mind.
stuck in the middle
(821 posts)Who was it that said, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”?
DFW
(60,186 posts)Last edited Fri Aug 4, 2023, 08:10 AM - Edit history (1)
It replaced E Pluribus Unum in 1954 during the (Joseph) McCarty era. What should have been asked was this: “If E Pluribus Unum” was good enough for the men who founded this country, why isn’t it still good now?”
As for our money, “In God We Trust” first appeared on the two cent piece (how many Americans even know we had them?) in 1864, and then on coins larger than a dime starting in 1866. President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, even ordered it taken off in 1907, though the God Squad had it restored within a year. Only the $10 and $20 gold coins actually appeared both with and without it in 1907 and 1908.
Tickle
(4,131 posts)I didn't know this and I probably should have. Thanks
DFW
(60,186 posts)The godless "Ultra High Relief" $20 piece of 1907 designed by sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens:
Impractical for mass coinage, but a work of medallic art.
hatrack
(64,890 posts)No more school shooting or violence or teen pregnancy either, while use of illegal drugs falls to zero!!
Well done, Louisiana legislators!!!
Oneironaut
(6,300 posts)It was adopted for very similar reasons to why it’s being pushed in classrooms now. It’s barely history.
Why don’t they display “E Pluribus Unum” as well? Oh yeah - because they can’t use it for God-bothering and grooming young kids into their Sky Fairy cult.
TexasDem69
(2,317 posts)Not that recent
Maru Kitteh
(31,763 posts)Easy fix. Done. It's segregationist bullshit anyhow.
maxsolomon
(38,729 posts)it became our "national motto" in 1956, at the height of the Red Scare. them godless comnists couldn't say it, apparently. they'd burst into flames.
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)
Solly Mack
(96,943 posts)
NowsTheTime
(1,314 posts)
Brainfodder
(7,781 posts)