Do you have any spare change lying around? Yes? I thought you might.
My dollar coins say “In God We Trust.”
My dollar bills say “In God We Trust.”
My quarters say “In God We Trust.”
My dimes say “In God We Trust.”
My nickels say “In God We Trust.”
My pennies say “In God We Trust.”
Every time I touch American legal tender, I touch the words “In God We Trust.”
Nevertheless, it turns out that those words are illegal — if they appear, not on a student’s coins, but on his classroom wall:
Saying a high school teacher has no right to “use his public position as a pulpit,” a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that a San Diego County school district was on solid legal ground when it ordered a math instructor to remove large banners declaring “IN GOD WE TRUST” and “GOD SHED HIS GRACE ON THEE.”
Those inscriptions and others that longtime teacher Bradley Johnson displayed on his classroom wall amounted to a statement of religious views that the Poway Unified School District was entitled to disavow, said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
Under U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the appellate panel said, government employees, including public schoolteachers, have no constitutional right to express views in the workplace that contradict their employer’s rules or policies.
“Johnson took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him,” said Judge Richard Tallman in the 3-0 ruling, which reversed a lower-court decision in the teacher’s favor. (Emphasis mine.)
"Hey, you can't say that in here!"
I especially like Judge Tallman’s reference to “impressionable and captive minds.” Apparently those young minds can withstand the constant propaganda emanating from legal tender, but put it on a classroom wall and their mushy psyches are completely overcome. Under that kind of pernicious “God We Trust” influence, the next thing you know, those poor, weak-brained students are going to rush out and commit some heinous acts of morality and decency. You can see pictures of the hypnotic, over-powering banners here.
(By the way, if you’re getting old, as I am, and are trying to fix “God Shed His Grace On Thee” in your mind, it’s from “America The Beautiful,” a song that liberal media stalwart Lynn Sherr identified in her book about its creation as our “nation’s favorite song.”)
We need to stop worrying about al Qaeda and start getting seriously worried about our judiciary. For three federal appellate court judges to say that the motto imprinted on every coin in America constitutes a private statement of religious views that can be banned from the classroom crosses a line from Progressive to deranged.
Cross-posted at Bookworm Room.
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