Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Second Circuit Holds that National Motto, “In God We Trust,” on the Currency is Constitutional

In a decision last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit joined four other circuits (the D.C. Circuit, the Tenth Circuit, the Fifth Circuit, and the Ninth Circuit) in upholding the constitutionality of two federal statutes that require that the national motto, “In God We Trust,” be placed on all coinage and paper currency. The court affirmed the dismissal of the complaint by the district court (Baer, J.).

The panel noted that there was some dispute and confusion about the proper Establishment Clause standard to apply in the case. It settled on the Lemon test, which is the “prevailing test in this circuit.” How odd that there is a “prevailing test” in a circuit that may well have been rejected by a current majority of the Supreme Court. And yet while the Second Circuit applied a test whose viability is in question, it also deferred to repeated Supreme Court dicta on the issue, indicating that the motto and its inclusion on the currency is a reference to our religious heritage and therefore satisfies the “secular purpose” and “primary secular effect” prongs of Lemon. The court then saw fit to rely on statements in several dissenting Supreme Court opinions. Even Justice Stevens in his Van Orden v. Perry dissent believed that “In God We Trust” was ok as “an appendage to a common article of commerce” (not quite sure what that means). And Justice Brennan once stated in dissent that “In God We Trust” did not violate the Constitution because the words have lost “any significant religious content” through “rote repetition.” That, too, was claimed by the panel to be persuasive.

The plaintiffs also brought free exercise and RFRA claims. These were rejected as well.

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O’Halloran, “Religion, Charity and Human Rights”

Next month, Cambridge University Press will publish Religion, Charity and Human Rights by Kerry O’Halloran (Queensland University of Technology).  The Religion, Chairtypublisher’s description follows.

For the first time in 400 years a number of leading common law nations have, fairly simultaneously, embarked on charity law reform leading to an encoding of key definitional matters in charity legislation. This book provides an analysis of international case law developments on the ever growing range of issues now being generated by clashes between human rights, religion and charity law. Kerry O’Halloran identifies and assesses the agenda of ‘moral imperatives’, such as abortion and gay marriage that delineate the legal interface and considers their significance for those with and those without religious belief. By assessing jurisdictional differences in the law relating to religion/human rights/charity the author provides a picture of the evolving ‘culture wars’ that now typify and differentiates societies in western nations including the USA, England and Wales, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

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Light, “That Pride of Race and Character”

Next month, New York University Press will publish That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South by Carolinethat pride of race and character E. Light (Harvard University).  The publisher’s description follows.

“It has ever been the boast of the Jewish people, that they support their own poor,” declared Kentucky attorney Benjamin Franklin Jonas in 1856. “Their reasons are partly founded in religious necessity, and partly in that pride of race and character which has supported them through so many ages of trial and vicissitude.” In That Pride of Race and Character, Caroline E. Light examines the American Jewish tradition of benevolence and charity and explores its southern roots.

Light provides a critical analysis of benevolence as it was inflected by regional ideals of race and gender, showing how a southern Jewish benevolent empire emerged in response to the combined pressures of post-Civil War devastation and the simultaneous influx of eastern European immigration. In an effort to combat the voices of anti-Semitism and nativism, established Jewish leaders developed a sophisticated and cutting-edge network of charities in the South to ensure that Jews took care of those considered “their own” while also proving themselves to be exemplary white citizens. Drawing from confidential case files and institutional records from various southern Jewish charities, the book relates how southern Jewish leaders and their immigrant clients negotiated the complexities of “fitting in” in a place and time of significant socio-political turbulence. Ultimately, the southern Jewish call to benevolence bore the particular imprint of the region’s racial mores and left behind a rich legacy.