Resolution recognizing God as ‘foundation’ of state advances
NASHVILLE (AP) — A subcommittee of the state House on Tuesday passed a resolution acknowledging God and the exercise of religious freedom as “the foundation of our national and state heritage.”
The resolution passed the House State Government subcommittee on a voice vote with no discussion and was forwarded to the full State and Local Government Committee.
Sponsor Rep. Eddie Yokely, D-Greeneville, said the resolution acknowledges “that God has been in our historical foundation and our heritage” throughout history.
The resolution, like many passed by the Legislature, has no practical effect other than to make a statement.
Yokely said he does not believe the nation’s laws were “meant to leave God out of government” but to ensure that government did not favor one denomination over another.
“If you look at the statements of our founders, they referred to God thousands of times,” he said. “This is to inform the public that the government, that a lot of us, realize that God has been left out and that’s not our intent.”
Similar resolutions have been passed in 40 counties in the state, Yokely claims.
The resolution was first passed by commissioners in Greene County, Yokely’s home. The mayor there, Roger Jones, then sent copies to the state’s other 94 county government leaders.
Jones said he was prompted by constituent concerns about efforts to delete “God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and last year’s federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building.
The state version of the resolution does not require any action by the government.
It notes that the United States “was settled by persons persecuted for their religious beliefs” and says the government “was founded upon a trust in God” first expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
It says the U.S. Constitution was drafted “to protect citizens from laws favoring the establishment of one religion over another and from laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion, so that all citizens might be free to worship God, or not, as each individually chooses.”
It says this nation has historically “acknowledged God on our national currency, in our Pledge of Allegiance, in the national motto of `In God We Trust,’ and in references to God appearing on the nation’s and this state’s greatest monuments, memorials and buildings, including the Ten Commandments, which are represented in the United States Supreme Court building.”
The actual resolution is “that the acknowledgment of God and the exercise of religious freedom are the foundation of our national and state heritage.”
The version before state lawmakers differs from the one originally proposed by Jones. It does not include a reference to the Alabama Ten Commandments monument as “rightfully placed there by the Chief Justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider a lower court ruling that found that monument violated the U.S. Constitution.
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On the Net:
See House Joint Resolution 815 at Tennessee General Assembly, http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/
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