Stuff like this rips the mask off the theocracy that exists in peoples minds or in reality. Sadly, while religious philosophy has admirable aspects it is used for staggering amounts of bigotry. Particularly when it’s adherents ignore it’s tenets that are inconvenient.
https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/html/SB00797F...
This is the actual law, which for some reason Washington post and other MSM refuse to link to. It looks like the law actually does require to display "in god we trust" (if given such a sign), but it would be nice for MSM to link to the original source.
> The modern motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is "In God we trust".
> The constitutionality of the modern national motto has been questioned with relationship to the separation of church and state outlined in the First Amendment.
> In 1970, in Aronow v. United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the motto does not violate the First Amendment to the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue.
In the current Supreme Court situation, I am not sure if they’d strike down this law, assuming a case against it reaches SC in the first place.
Even if this law is challenged in court and is struck down, it is still a win for GOP. They riled up their base over a manufactured issue, diverted their base’s attention from actual issues. This is GOP politics 101 these days.
Indeed. That's what I was trying to get to. I've actually met people who thought the GOP was good, and Republicans were bad because they didn't understand they were the same thing.
American political parties are weird, and the labels (Democrat/Republican) have swapped platforms/sides of the aisle several times in the last two hundred years.
>> SECTION 2. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives
a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as
provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this
Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this
Act takes effect September 1, 2021.
I am not American - So strange that the act takes effect even if it does not receive the required votes, only a bit later. How does it work ?
Sec. 39. TIME OF TAKING EFFECT OF LAWS. No law passed by the Legislature, except the general appropriation act, shall take effect or go into force until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was enacted, unless the Legislature shall, by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House, otherwise direct; said vote to be taken by yeas and nays, and entered upon the journals.
The goal here is for laws not to take people by surprise; when a law is passed, it's not active until ninety days has passed, so people have time to learn about the new law and adjust accordingly. If it is believed that an emergency needs the law to be enforced sooner, the Constitution provides a mechanism for that.
In short, it does need the required votes to become law, but that is in this process a simple majority; a larger majority is required to bypass the 90-day delay.
Thank God the Constitution provides a mechanism to get this emergency law take effect immediately to stop godless schools from throwing away framed posters!
So atheists have no place in Texas, or USA generally speaking, given modern motto "In God we trust"?
Abortion, vote restrictions, teachers can lead their students in prayer, religious motto... USA is everyday more similar to Iran. Change my mind.
This seems like a bad comparison. Hanging from cranes isn't a form of criminal assault that some people experience, as "being assaulted in the USA" is. It's a form of standardized systematic judicial punishment of gay people in Iran. Not quite the same thing.
There are still laws making it illegal to have gay sex on the books in parts of the US, they just aren't usually being enforced. They could start enforcing them any time they want. They're not constitutional, but that hasn't stopped states from doing lots of other unconstitutional things while people sued to block them. Once those suits go to the supreme court, the modern set of judges might validate those laws.
In some cases these laws also criminalize some forms of heterosexual intercourse, as a fun little example of how discriminatory laws targeting the minority can often be repurposed to punish members of the majority who step out of line.
Have you not followed the abortion, trans-rights, or gay marriage dramas that are unfolding before our very eyes?
The christian right would love nothing more than to make it illegal to be gay again. As a matter of fact, many also want to make getting an abortion a capital crime. So yes, it's definitely trending in the direction of Saudi Arabia and Iran, it's just that they don't _yet_ have the power to force these laws on the population. Yet, being the key word.
I think this is a great opportunity for a whole series of MIT-style hacks:
- Put the text on a gay-rights rainbow flag
- Put it on a Canadian Flag
- Make it a very very small poster
- Make it a very very large poster
- Make it an ad for your new start-up, with the text very very small in the corner
- Put otherwise profane words on the poster but have 'In God We Trust' on it too
- Make a word cloud with the text in the word cloud somewhere
- Make it as offensive as possible to the writers of the law with 'In God We Trust' on it. Like, ads for The Bunny Ranch, or for your DnD club, ads for the nearest abortion clinic, etc.
- Make it useful to the students with the text on it. Put helpful notes about how to use your phone to cheat in class, what teachers you suspect of dating each other, how much the principal makes in a year, etc
- Cherry pick laws you want to highlight and have the text on it.
- Have it be outright campaign ads for politicians with the text on it
In the end, the law is so poorly written that it essential makes staff into full time poster putter-uppers for literally any message you want to have sent. You only need to pay for the poster. This opens up opportunities for the students and teachers.
Most of these are prohibited in the law, which says the poster or framed copy "may not depict any words, images, or other information other than the representations listed in Subdivision (1)". https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/87R/billtext/html/SB00797F...
The gay-rights rainbow flag would be information encoded in the color. Subdivision (1) allows only a US flag and a state flag. The "other information" clearly prohibits the ads and other text examples you mentioned, leaving only the size as something you could change.
Maybe just use a really thick font and bad kerning to have the repeated 'In God We Trust' words as a line. Then use that repeated message to outline other words. Here's a really terrible example: https://imgur.com/a/Vwd5uho
I'm sure a judge (and the principal) will say the "Hi" example you give violates the "no other information" requirement.
You will need "a representation of the United States flag centered under the national motto."
The same judge/principal will likely interpret "the national motto" to mean there is only one instance of the motto, and thereby reject repeated copies of the motto.
This being HN, I guess you might want an actual technical answer.
One way might be to compare Quran's Sura 1 to the Lord's prayer in the Bible (either Matthew 6:9– or Luke 11:2- ) , in either arabic or english (or use transliterated) since they overlap.
A salient difference is that the Quran uses "God" while the Bible version uses "Our Father". This is due to the fact that Christianity is trinitarian whilst Islam isn't.
Eh, that's pretty fallacious reasoning. No one's going to hire a specialist to put up a poster, and it's not like a school is going to allow someone to deface whatever else is on the walls, so it's not like any extra effort would be expended there. Whatever labor required would almost certainly have been expended on some other too-insignificant-to-track task (like putting up yet another "go sports team!"/"officer friendly is your friend!" poster), so it's just a substitute X with Y type thing.
It's not fallacious. You even agree that it costs the school money.
You are correct that it's a small amount, but it's still a cost to the school.
If it doesn't benefit the school then it's a waste of the school's money.
Also, most school boosterism/Officer-friendly type posters aren't framed, while this law requires the school to put up a framed poster if that's what someone donates. I wonder what the school will do if it's framed in glass.
> It's not fallacious. You even agree that it costs the school money.
It's not going to cost them money unless they're actually going to spend more, and they won't. Putting up one poster instead of another isn't spending more, preventing vandalism you're already preventing isn't spending more, etc.
Yes, while putting up a poster on a blank wall is spending more.
Replacing a poster + tape with a framed poster + fasteners is also spending more.
My point is vineyardmike only looked at acquisition cost, not TCO.
I don't see how you can be so sure there is only cost substitution, and that there is no additional cost.
We even read that Chaz Stevens raised $14K to distribute Arabic versions of the sign to schools. Someone in each school needs to receive the sign and decide to toss it.
That's a additional cost which wasn't there before.
Again, agreed - it's small. But I don't agree with your assessment that it's zero.
> I don't see how you can be so sure there is only cost substitution, and that there is no additional cost.
Because that's how the world works. Schools spend money to have capability to to miscellaneous tasks, things like putting up random posters. Adding one more tiny task, realistically, isn't going to cause them to spend more money, by any reasonable definition. At worst it will bump out a lower priority task (of probably dubious value), but it's just as likely someone will just spend a little less slack time staring at their phone.
tl;dr: it won't cost more, because they're already going to spend the money, one way or another.
> We even read that Chaz Stevens raised $14K to distribute Arabic versions of the sign to schools.
Which is money the school isn't spending. IIRC, the whole point of the thread required the posters be paid for with private funds.
> Someone in each school needs to receive the sign and decide to toss it.
> That's a additional cost which wasn't there before.
That person has always been there, getting paid to handle random stuff like this: there's no additional cost, it was always there.
Why is it odd that regulations would require public schools to display the motto of the United States, or the flag of the United States, or any of that? These things seem like exactly what every country does.
[edit - This comment is currently at -2, less than 10 minutes after posting it. HN, you're changing, and not for the better...]
[edit #2 - I don't think this has been a very good thread at all.]
It's certainly not normal in my country for schools to display the country's motto or flag, nor do children pledge allegiance to anything. We did sing some hymns though.
This may not come as a surprise but Germany is neither doing flags, nor anthem singing or any kind of pledge.
The day begins with "Good morning" - "Good morning Ms/Mr X".
And being a secular country there is no prayer in school either (however there is religion as a school subject if you are a member of one of the major churches (+ sometimes Islam is offered as well)) or ethics if you are not.
Germany is less surprising to me, given the history involved. Based on what I am looking into on Google Maps, however, it hardly seems to be a phenomenon confined to the US, and at least based on my spot checks it seems to be more common than not for public schools to display national flags.
You really think that the USSR of the early 1940s could have fought that era's Germany and Japan at once?
What about the comments by no less than Admiral Zhukov himself acknowledging that in his view, the USSR couldn't have defeated Germany without US assistance?
A pledge or prayer would be unthinkable in France for instance.
We do not display the French flag in schools (for no particular reason, except that you would need someone to take care of that), you would find Forbes on official buildings.
Its very much a US thing. Sure other countrys have flags and they like them but Americans really take it to a whole other level. In the uk every school I wen't to had a flag pole but would only fly a flag on special occasions such as sporting events and we would fly sports flags. In America they seem to worship their flag when I see they are scared to let it touch the ground.
From the outside it looks like Americans value the flag more than they value other Americans, in the uk we value brits more than we value the British flag as the flag is just a representation of the people.
Yes I am sure. [0] The first Canadian school I looked at on google maps doesn't even have a flag pole never mind the flag. If this school was in America I would expect it to be burnt out by the end of the day for such a disgusting display.
not in NZ either, we sang hymns in school assembly when I was a kid but these days more that half of us don't believe in religion - you have to choose to pay to go to a special school if you want to be taught god stuff, which is as it should be
In czech republic state flag is not always displayed.
Some schools have picture of president in classrooms but it is more of a rare sight.
Also there is a separate subject about topics ranging from state symbols to law creation.
so yes it probably is US thing
It's interesting that in the countries where it seems to be less common, everyone assumes that displaying flags outside of schools is a US-only thing, when spot checks of Google Maps seem to suggest that it's relatively common throughout the world.
Americans get a lot of flak for assuming the world looks like their backyard, but maybe this is a case of the reverse?
I don't see why, given that looking through Google Maps seems to suggest that it's at least as common as not...
Let me just step back and observe that this is possibly the worst way to do cultural exchanges. Why does everyone have to take an attitude of superiority and judgement, instead of objective inquiry and mutual discovery?
Perhaps it's because you didn't start the exchange with enquiry, but instead claimed that what happens in your country is "exactly what every country does"
Because it’s a religious motto. It’s not just the national motto.
AND as mentioned by another comment, the specific law in question was explicitly created to push Christianity onto school kids, according to the creators.
And pushing religion on someone in school is against americas stated ideals.
I don't think I've ever seen "In God We Trust" on anything but US currency. I have heard of merchants putting up signs saying "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash", but have never seen such a sign. And I did attend schools that had the pledge of allegiance.
No, the US has no official language, but English is the de facto national language. Some laws require official documents (election forms, immigration forms, etc.) in multiple languages. You often see signs including other languages in specific locations depending on the local population (Spanish in the Southwest and Puerto Rico, French near French Canada, Native American near reservations). In addition, some state laws require the use of languages important to their local populations (e.g. Spanish on legal and warning signs in areas with a lot of Spanish-speaking citizens)
This particular law is a state law passed in Texas. It requires that schools post any privately donated signs with this message. The law is written in English, so the case is not a slam dunk. A court could find that the law specifies the phrase in English and only applies to signs with the English phrase.
This Texas law is an example of the recent trend in the state's politics to leverage private actors to enact policies that may be constitutionally questionable. They also did it with their recent abortion laws, that enable private individual and organizations to sue abortion seekers and providers for facilitating abortions, even if the people bringing suit have no relationship to the abortion activities. The constitutionality of such laws have not been determined in court yet, so they may yet run into issues.
Does it mean that I could address an official body in any language and they are obligated to respond me in it? This sounds like an open door to a lot of abuse.
> A court could find that the law specifies the phrase in English and only applies to signs with the English phrase.
That's a good point.
My main concern was about the mere probability that the case stands in court. (In France for instance, if we had such a law (not gonna happen, hopefully, but who knows), the sign would have to be in French.)
So in the case of the Arabic one in Texas, it was either a sure win (if all languages are compulsory to be accepted), or a sure loss (if there is no such a provision).
If I understand your comment correctly, there is yet a third case: any language must be accepted, but in this case the letter of the law could be made specific to English (I am just rephrasing what your wrote to make sure I understand correctly).
In any case the idea that each and every language is acce^table to deal with official bodies sounds crazy.
'In God We Trust' is the US national motto. It's literally this string of characters and nothing else. Regardless of having official language, this law looks unambiguous: any other string of characters is not covered by the law.
I am specifically not trying to be vindictive - I read this official document and was quite surprised by the fact that all federal employees must swear on God (which means, I guess, that an atheist id not bound by the oath?), that it confirms that there is no America without God, or that religion and morality are the fondements of the US.
This is besides the point, but just like the lack of official language does not mean there is no language in the US or it's not important, the lack of official religion does not mean there is no religion or it's unimportant.
Can’t they just reject it on the grounds that America uses English as the de facto language? In Texas they might also allow a Spanish sign but that wouldn’t provoke the same xenophobia.
So, I couldn’t find a DMV that would readily provide a welsh driving test (based on their website). That said, they would be required to accommodate and provide a translator.
Based on the civil rights act, it is considered discrimination based on nationality to discriminate based on English proficiency, and therefore illegal.
Hebrew might be a very good candidate as well. You'd get some interesting fireworks if people demanded those posters got taken down.
And of course: Aramaic would be most interesting indeed.
So possibly a poster with : Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, the three original languages of 3 major monotheistic religions. I think this also meets the requirement that the only words should be "In God We Trust".
Yeah, it would make sense to pick for example the 5 or 6 most commonly used written languages on Earth. You'd probably want to include simplified chinese and devanagari, probably spanish as well if only because so many people use it in the Americas.
What do you consider „effective“? This will not change the law. It‘s about raising attention to a stupid law and that happens all of the time. Pastafaris, Birds aren’t real, … are doing the same thing. They confront stupid ideas by exposing them. If it makes a few people think about the issue, if it makes some aware of the problem, then it can be considered effective.
I don't know if it's what the GP meant but I would just be interested in knowing if it's effective in the legal sense, i.e. if a court would rule that it must be displayed despite not being in English.
It looks like it won't work in this case, but other examples of trolling where courts rule in favor of a literal technical interpretation would be funny to see.
I don‘t believe their goal is that a court would rule in their favor, though it would certainly be a great outcome for them. I believe that getting the governments lawyer to make up all sorts of justifications is what they’re aiming for, because that exposes how stupid this law is.
There is a whole trolling campaign which has been extremely effective.
Lots of small towns in rural US say prayers before their town council meetings. The courts have ruled that this is ok, as long as there is no discrimination between religions - any citizen of that town can request to have their own religion's prayers spoken. People in these towns who are opposed to the Christian prayers have declared themselves to be adherents of the Church of Satan, and won court orders giving permission for Satanist prayers to take place.
There are videos of this happening on YouTube. It's, imo, remarkable evidence of something awesome about the American system. The Church of Satan sends someone scary-looking who recites something purporting to be a prayer, but is actually a speech in favor of humanism and tolerance. They are not allowed to make any political statements so they have to disguise it as prayer. They also make sure they get in lots of satanic-sounding stuff as well, to mess with the Christians. The local rednecks look worried and righteous and mumble anti-satanic stuff under their breath. They are allowed to say personal prayers to protect themselves from the devil, but not at a volume which covers up the satanic prayers. There are US Marshalls all over the place in these little town halls ready to jump anyone who violates any of these court instructions. And dozens of lawyers acting like it's an execution and they might be needed for a last minute challenge.
Most towns where this process has started simply get rid of the prayers at the start of the meeting.
> Texas legislators, Stevens thought, were trolling people who don’t believe in a Judeo-Christian God.
> Now, Stevens wants to troll them back.
The votes to reaffirm the national motto pass because of a combination of historical significance and that it doesn't specify a religion. It's stated explicitly each time:
It doesn't specify a religion only in a very narrow sense. It rules out atheism as invalid, it rules out polytheistic religions (singular god).
Stating that somethings is the case does not make it so. The very article you link to states that it was intended to merge Christianity and patriotism, if you can't see how that makes it very much specific to a particular religion (although not specific to a specific church), then I don't see what evidence could convince you.
> The motto has withstood legal challenges from groups that said it violated the separation of church and state. Courts have held that the motto is “ceremonial Deism,” not an official endorsement of religion.
Should they have ceremonial atheism too? "In God we don't believe"?
Stuff like this rips the mask off the theocracy that exists in peoples minds or in reality. Sadly, while religious philosophy has admirable aspects it is used for staggering amounts of bigotry. Particularly when it’s adherents ignore it’s tenets that are inconvenient.