{"id":24533,"date":"2019-01-23T10:39:48","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T16:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24533"},"modified":"2019-01-23T10:39:48","modified_gmt":"2019-01-23T16:39:48","slug":"display-of-national-motto-in-schools-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24533","title":{"rendered":"Display of national motto in schools proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nebraska schools would be required to display the national motto in each school building under a bill considered by the Education Committee Jan. 22.

\"Sen.
Sen. Steve Erdman<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Introduced by Bayard Sen. Steve Erdman, LB73 would require school boards to display the phrase \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d in English in each classroom or other prominent place so that every student could see and read it each school day. <\/p>\n

The bill would authorize schools to accept contributions to pay for the displays. It also would require the state attorney general to intervene on behalf of a school or other defendant if the bill\u2019s provisions are challenged in court. <\/p>\n

Erdman brought an amendment to the hearing that would eliminate that requirement and instead would authorize school districts to request that the attorney general represent them in any lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the displays. <\/p>\n

Erdman said that 87 of the state\u2019s 93 county courthouses display or plan to display the phrase, which was adopted as the national motto by a joint resolution of Congress in 1956 and reaffirmed most recently in 2011. LB73 would extend that display to public school buildings, he said, and is not intended to launch a debate about religion or the separation of church and state. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe courts have ruled on several occasions … that this is not a religious statement,\u201d Erdman said. \u201cThis is not a statement forming a national religion\u2014this is the national motto.\u201d <\/p>\n

Zachary Wahab Cheek, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student, testified in support of the bill, saying that requiring schools to display the phrase would not violate the separation of church and state because Congress adopted it as the national motto.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see any legal reasoning against this,\u201d Wahab Cheek said. \u201cI don\u2019t see why this is not compliant with the federal government\u2019s acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Testifying in opposition to the bill was Gwendolen Hines of the Unitarian Church of Lincoln. She said the state should not indoctrinate students with belief in any particular god. <\/p>\n

\u201cChildren should not be daily exposed to and expected to hold sacred the belief that the Christian God affects our daily lives,\u201d Hines said. \u201cChildren should be allowed to make up their own minds about religion and God, and this decision should not be swayed by messages they receive at school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marrianne Williams of Lincoln also testified in opposition, saying that the bill is part of a larger effort to instill Christianity in the state\u2019s public schools. She said the U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the motto\u2019s religious significance, meaning that its display in public buildings is not immune to future court challenges. <\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018In God We Trust\u2019 is not a positive message for our schools, as it\u2019s divisive and excludes all those that believe in no God at all,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Colby Coash, speaking on behalf of the Nebraska Association of School Boards, also testified in opposition to the bill. He said it does not provide school boards with practical details such as the number, size or location of the required displays.<\/p>\n

Some schools may not be able to raise the needed funds through contributions, Coash added, resulting in an unfunded mandate on public schools.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are probably some school boards across the state who would like to do this,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as an organization, we feel that that decision should be left to those public school boards.”<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on LB73.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nebraska schools would be required to display the national motto in each school building under a bill considered by the Education Committee Jan. 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24518,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-24533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-sen-steve-erdman"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/LB73Erdman1-22-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24533"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24535,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24533\/revisions\/24535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}