The American Civil Liberties Union has a well-deserved reputation as a scourge of religion in the public square.
When a judge in Alabama displayed the Ten Commandments in his courtroom, the ACLU filed suit to force their removal. When a church in Troy, Mich., put a banner promoting the National Day of Prayer on the lawn of the civic center, the ACLU demanded that it be taken down. When the Sycamore School District in southern Ohio, anticipating a high number of absences, decided to cancel classes on Yom Kippur, the ACLU went to court to keep the schools open.
The ACLU has fought to stop town plows from clearing snow in church parking lots, to prevent Mothers Against Drunk Driving from putting up white crosses at the sites of fatal drunk-driving accidents, and, of course, to shoot down anything that smacks of organized prayer on public school grounds. But it is hard to see how the ACLU can possibly top its latest campaign: an assault on the motto of the State of Ohio.
In 1959, the Ohio Legislature adopted "With God All Things Are Possible" as the Buckeye State's official motto. In 1996, then-Governor George Voinovich proposed that the motto be engraved in granite on a plaza at the Ohio State House. Whereupon the ACLU swung into action, arguing that the motto violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and didn't belong on the State House plaza — or on anything else owned or created by the State of Ohio. A federal judge ruled for the state, but on April 25 a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed.
Because the words of the motto are a quotation from the New Testament — they are spoken by Jesus in the Book of Matthew — the judges found that they amount to "an endorsement of the Christian religion by the State of Ohio." Indeed, they express "a uniquely Christian thought not shared by Jews and Moslems." As a result, the state has "effectively said to all who hear or see the words 'With God All Things Are Possible,' that Christianity is a preferred religion to the people of Ohio."
The ACLU was thrilled. "We are delighted with the ruling," said the director of the Ohio chapter, Christine Link. It "affirms the bedrock principle that the state cannot and should not choose between competing religious doctrines."
But is that what "With God All Things Are Possible" really does? Could any sentiment be less particularistic? If Ohio's motto amounts to "a uniquely Christian thought" merely because the words are taken from the New Testament, then the motto that appears on all American coins and currency — "In God We Trust" — must be a uniquely Jewish thought, since it is adapted from the Hebrew Bible ("In God I trust; I am not afraid" — Psalms 56:11).
No, no, say the judges; the God on the money is OK; it's only the other God, the God of Ohio's motto — the one who frowns on money — who doesn't pass constitutional muster. You think I'm twisting the court's words? Listen:
"The god of the coin of the realm" — this is from Judge Merritt's concurring opinion, in which Judge Cohn joined — "is not by any means the God of Matthew 19:21-26, who makes all things possible, a God who disapproves of mammon, and who through his son, Jesus Christ, reportedly threw the money changers out of the temple."
This is theological hooey. When Jesus said, "With God all things are possible," he was echoing the words spoken by Job centuries earlier ("Then Job answered the Lord and said: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered" — Job 42: 1-2) and foreshadowing those of Mohammed centuries later ("Know you not that God is able to do all things?" — Koran, Sura 2:106). If the Court of Appeals and the ACLU truly imagine that the omnipotence of God is "a uniquely Christian thought not shared by Jews and Moslems," they are badly out of touch with the beliefs of most Americans.
Ohio's attorney general, Betty Montgomery, has appealed the three-judge panel's ruling to the full Sixth Circuit. If necessary, she can also appeal to the US Supreme Court, where, she pointedly notes, each session begins with the invocation, "God save the United States and this honorable court."
The First Amendment is not an invitation to strip every hint of religious faith from the public sphere. If Ohio's motto is not allowed to stand, then the words "under God" must be deleted from the Pledge of Allegiance. Presidents must stop taking the oath of office on a Bible. Congress must end the practice — which goes straight back to the Founders — of beginning each day's session with prayers led by an official chaplain. Is that what the ACLU wants? Maybe, but there are other views worth considering. This one, for instance:
"We have staked the future of all of our political institutions . . . upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
So wrote James Madison, the author of the First Amendment.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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