Reply #11: Blatantly unconstitutional

[starroute]

In the spring of 1963, my high school advanced placement social studies class went down to Washington and got to meet with a variety of government officials, including a Supreme Court justice -- if memory serves, it was Justice Hugo L. Black.

One of my fellow students asked him whether having "In God We Trust" on the money wasn't in violation of separation of church and state. I was expecting he'd give some sort of elaborate explanation of why it was really okay. But to my surprise, he answered quite forcefully that she was absolutely right but that things being what they were, there was no chance of anybody successfully challenging it.

Of course, that's even more true today than it was then. But it was nice, in a funny way, to know that at least somebody within the government was aware of the problem and cared about it and felt as helpless as we did to change things.