The Washington Examiner – The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to take up a legal dispute targeting the inscription: IN GOD WE TRUST, on coins and currency. Michael Newdow, an activist, filed the case on behalf of a group of atheists.
He argued Congress’s mandate to inscribe the nation’s motto on U.S. money was a violation of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibiting Congress from establishing a national religion.
The inscription first appeared on coins in 1864, and Congress passed legislation in 1955 requiring all paper and coin currency to bear the words. Newdow argued “mandating the inscription of facially religious text on every coin and currency bill, . . . turns atheists into political outsiders.”
