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Group's Petition Urges Constitutional Protection of Motto, Pledge

by Ed Thomas and Jody Brown
November 30, 2005

(AgapePress) - - A pro-family group is working toward its own goal of gathering one-million signatures for a petition to Congress designed to thwart the latest legal efforts of atheist Michael Newdow.

The man who took his fight against the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. Supreme Court has now filed a new lawsuit in the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals. The objective of that suit, according to American Family Association founder and chairman Donald E. Wildmon, is to remove the national motto -- "In God We Trust" -- from American currency. Newdow, a professed atheist who brought the suit, contends having the motto on the currency is a violation of the "separation of church and state."


Dr. Don Wildmon   
Newdow's more recent legal action follows a suit by other plaintiffs that he helped initiate, asking again for the Pledge of Allegiance to be removed from public schools. Both of those lawsuits have become the targets for one of AFA's latest online petitions, which urges Congress to respond in a very specific way. As Wildmon explains, the petition seeks passage of a Constitutional amendment that would specifically allow the "use of our national motto and the Pledge of Allegiance without any fear of violating the Constitution."

Wildmon is a veteran of conservative activist causes, having taken on numerous challenges to religious freedoms -- often initiated by the American Civil Liberties Union. "People, I think, are getting disgusted [and] they're getting tired [of such legal maneuvers]," the pro-family leader says. "Every time you turn around, the ACLU and the Michael Newdows in the country have launched a new movement to get rid of anything that [to them] smacks ... as being 'Christian.'"

According to the AFA founder, response to this petition has been the largest and most rapid in the group's history. Already nearly 400,000 responses are on line toward the goal of one-million signatures. AFA says it plans to send the petition signatures to Congressman Chip Pickering of Mississippi, who in the last congressional session introduced a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing use of the motto and the Pledge. AFA officials say they plan to work with Pickering to submit the measure again this session.

Wildmon recalls that it took only one person -- Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- to get prayer booted from the nation's public schools. In that light he urges that "we must not allow one person, Michael Newdown, to get our national motto removed from our currency by our silence." In doing so, he contends a clear message will be sent to the "liberal judges" sitting on the Ninth Circuit -- a group that Wildmon expects will agree with Newdow.

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