November 16, 2009
by AFP News, Agence France Presse

(Washington, DC) -- More than 40 US lawmakers, all Republicans, have signed on to a legal brief opposing a lawsuit aimed at removing "In God We Trust" from the US Capitol's tourist hub, the Politico web site said Monday.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit in July to scrub "In God We Trust" -- designated the modern US national motto in a 1956 law -- and the US Pledge of Allegiance from the wall of the Capitol Visitors Center.

The pledge, a daily ritual for millions of US schoolchildren, has referred to the United States as "under God" since 1954, when the US Congress added the words to the existing text as a Cold War rebuke to Soviet atheism.

But the American Center for Law and Justice think tank, backed by 41 Republican members of the House of Representatives and three Republican senators, has filed a "friend of the court" brief urging the case be dismissed.

The brief assails the lawsuit as a misguided "crusade" and says the inscription does not violate the first amendment to the US Constitution, which forbids the US Congress from legislating "an establishment of religion."

"While the First Amendment affords atheists complete freedom to disbelieve, it does not compel the federal judiciary to redact religious references in every area of public life in order to suit atheistic sensibilities," it says.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation contended in July, two months before the engravings were unveiled, that they amounted to "government endorsement and advancement of religion," while excluding nonreligious Americans.