Liberty Counsel offered to defend the Allegheny County Council after it received a threatening email from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) opposing a proposed display of the national motto, “In God We Trust,” in the County Council meeting room in Pennsylvania.
“The FFRF is in the business of harassing schools, county commissioners, and any official who will listen to their claims that public expressions of faith are unconstitutional, including the national motto,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel.
“In the letter from FFRF to the council, Ms. Gaylor deceitfully said that displaying the motto was unconstitutional. Ms. Gaylor lost a similar national motto case before the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case bearing her own name, Gaylor v. United States.”
Annie Laurie Gaylor is the co-founder of FFRF, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused her petition for certiorari, a writ seeking judicial review, in that case. Most recently in 2014, the Supreme Court upheld public prayer before legislative meetings as a “part of our heritage and tradition” in Town of Greece v. Galloway, again over the FFRF’s objection.
“The FFRF and its supporters are free to express their antipathy against our national history and the numerous expressions of our country’s faith in God, but they are not free to suppress the constitutional will of the majority,” concluded Staver.
