Rudolph Bell

dbell@greenvillenews.com

Greenville County has joined a movement of local governments installing plaques bearing the national motto, “In God We Trust.”

County Council recently voted unanimously to display the phrase inside Council Chambers at County Square.

County Councilman Fred Payne said he proposed the idea after getting an email newsletter from In God We Trust America, a nonprofit organization that encourages local governments to display the motto.

“We’re just reaffirming this is a great nation, and it was made great by a great God,” Payne said.

Victoria Middleton, however, executive director of the ACLU of South Carolina, said it’s not clear why the county would want to post a religious phrase that could make residents who practice a different religion, or no religion at all, uncomfortable.

“Especially in a courthouse or council chambers, people should not be made to feel like outsiders in their own community because they don’t share the dominant religious view,” Middleton said.

“In God We Trust” began appearing on U.S. coins during the Civil War and was made the national motto by Congress in 1956, according to the U.S. Treasury Department’s website.

In God We Trust America was launched more than a decade ago by Jacquie Sullivan, a longtime member of City Council in Bakersfield, Calif.

Today, it counts 373 local governments in 15 states that have voted to display the motto, Sullivan said.

She said most Americans support the motto’s display in public buildings.

“It’s completely, solidly legal,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said her records show that Anderson on June 7 became the first South Carolina county to vote to display the motto and Greenville became the second when it approved the idea on June 17.

Greenville County Attorney Mark Tollison, asked if he’d reviewed the legality of displaying the motto, pointed to a legal opinion from former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon.

Condon concluded in the 2002 opinion that displaying the motto does not violate the First Amendment prohibition on laws “respecting an establishment of religion.”

He cited three federal appeals court rulings that upheld use of the motto against Establishment Clause challenges.