In Mammon We Trust
Michael Newdow, whom you may recall from the Pledge of Allegiance bruhaha, has launched a new Establishment Clause crusade: To get "In God We Trust" taken off U.S. currency. Now, this is pretty clearly counterproductive: It's a trivial question whether the motto remains there or not, it's all but politically impossible that the courts would actually rule in Newdow's favor (the Supreme Court dodged having to rule on the merits of the Pledge by instead ruling that Newdow lacked standing to raise the challenge), and stuff like this never fails to touch off nauseous waves of pious rhetoric from politicians—not to mention mobilizing the constituents who actually believe it to agitate for still worse policies.
Still, if it weren't for those political considerations, he'd have a decent case. Here as in so many other Establishment Clause wrangles, the line is that it's not meant to be an endorsement of religion, but only a sort of recognition of historical traditions. Except that's not at all the impression you get from the Treasury Department's own account of the motto's origin. As they tell it, back in 1861, the secretary of the treasury, prompted by letters insisting that he do something to "relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism," commanded the U.S. Mint that "The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins," a change Congress later approved. Likely the Court will follow the logic of its recent 10 Commandments rulings and find that, whether initially placed there for a religious purpose or not, the long span of time between 1861 and the present has secularized the motto—turned it into a historical statement, even if it wasn't initially. That doesn't strike me as a terribly compelling principle in itself, but it's not a bad pragmatic rule, in that it may, at least, serve to avoid messy, emotional battles over trivial yet hoary traditions without requiring the dilution of the Establishment Clause for the purposes of new legislation.
