For the creation of the new Capitol Visitors Center in Washington D.C., organizations and legislators aligned with the Christian right wing pushed to have religious mottos engraved upon the structure. These mottos, "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God", are relatively recent inventions, crafted by Congress in the 1950s in order to specifically promote Christianity.
There is no historical basis to link either these mottos in particular or the theocratic concepts they represent more generally with the system of law created by the Constitution of the United States of America. Furthermore, the use of government money, to transform the Capitol Visitors Center into a religious shrine promoting the idea that the U.S. government is subservient to the Christian God, is a clear violation of the separation of Church and State required by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
A growing number of Americans reject the religion of Christianity, and they have a right to a government that is not hijacked by right wing Christianity. An organization representing non-religious Americans has filed suit, asking for these Christian mottos to be removed from the Capitol Visitors Center, so that government neutrality regarding religion can be restored.
44 members of Congress, however, have signed their names to a friend of the court legal brief that asserts that the Christian mottos must remain because as they say, the Christian deity's authority over the U.S. federal government is an "undeniable truth". This legal brief was prepared for them by an organization founded by televangelist Pat Robertson. Every single one of these members of Congress is a Christian.
So, although the brief is intended to quash the freedom of religion lawsuit, it in fact illustrates how the mottos "In God We Trust" and "One Nation Under God" are being used by certain religious groups in order to attempt to force Christian theocratic religious practices on all Americans.
The 44 members of Congress who signed their names to Pat Robertson's pro-theocracy legal brief are:
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