Remember how, back when the 9th Circuit ruled that the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by public school teachers violated the establishment clause because of the inclusion of the phrase “under God?” Remember how the usual broken records wigged out and compared it to an attempt to remove “In God We Trust” from our money? Well, maybe that wouldn’t be so silly. See, as it turns out, the motto wasn’t on U.S. currency until after the Civil War, when it was added for explicitly religious reasons. That means it fails the “secular purpose” test that’s the most basic Establishment Clause hurdle any statute must overcome.

Now, in a sense, I’ll go a certain distance with the folks who deride strict separationsists for getting freaked out by something as trivial as a motto on coins and bills. Certainly, I’m not about to start a campaign to purge it, and I doubt there’s an atheist in the country strident enough to actually waste his time or money raising a challenge. Still, I’d be interested to see how those same folks would react if they cycled through a nice ecumenical set of different mottos: “In Allah We Trust,” “In Vishnu We Trust,” “We Do Not Trust in Any God.” Why do I get the feeling that suddenly, the same folks would become First Amendment fundamentalists?