The Freedom from Religion Foundation ripped South Dakota’s “In God We Trust” law this week as a form of “brainwashing” applied to children.
Students in The Mount Rushmore State will return to the classroom in the coming days to find the famous motto somewhere within the building.
The law, signed by Gov. Kristi Noem in March, effects 149 school districts.
“Some have plaques, others have it painted on the wall, maybe in a mural setting,” Associated School Boards of South Dakota executive director Wade Pogany said, CBS reported Friday. “[One school incorporated it into] their freedom wall. They added that to a patriotic theme.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor has blasted the legislation.
“Our position is that it’s a terrible violation of freedom of conscience to inflict a godly message on a captive audience of schoolchildren,” she said, the network reported.
“These laws are about advancing the Big Lie that the United States was ’founded on God’ or Christianity, thus dismantling the wall between religion and government,” FFRF said in a statement released Thursday. “The motto ’In God We Trust’ is inaccurate, exclusionary, and aimed at brainwashing American schoolchildren into believing that our nation is a theocracy.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is damning an exclusionary new South Dakota law that mandates displaying an “In God We Trust” logo in all public schools. https://t.co/tQ4XQEXut5 pic.twitter.com/UKpAAO0D0q
— FFRF (@FFRF) July 25, 2019
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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