To the editor:

In Erik Hoversten’s Feb. 28 column, he said “ln God we trust” should be taken off American currency. Hoversten believes this must be done “to show that we are committed to the religious freedoms we have in this country and avoid contributing to the factionalization of society.”

His point has some validity. He might think getting rid of “In God we trust” could promote our religious freedom. However, the removal of this saying from our currency is beyond our reach.

While it may be possible to stop the printing of the motto on the money, it is next to impossible to rid all the money of the saying. The only way to do that is to stop the circulation of the money that has already been made and distribute new currency. An attempt toward reprinting the money is next to impossible and is not worth the effort.

If we want to ensure our deserved religious freedom, maybe we should consider rewriting the Declaration of Independence, too. It talks about “Nature’s God” and man’s Creator.

God is part of our country’s history. If we were to get rid of the motto for the sake of our religious freedom, we would have to redo several things that our nation was founded on. We would have to rewrite the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and even change how we swear in our Presidents. We need to be careful how far we go with the idea of religious freedom.

We have already thrown out many things because we need our religious freedom. We have thrown out the teaching of Ten Commandments, the “one nation under God” from the pledge of allegiance and prayer from school. Has removing them done us any good?

Our founders put them there for a reason. One of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shall not kill.” If we still taught the Ten Commandments in elementary schools, maybe the 6-year-old boy wouldn’t have shot his classmate.

We should focus on the future. The main idea is making sure that we keep our religious freedom in the future and do not impose our beliefs on others.

We should let the past take care of itself and not try to correct it now. Our ancestors set up this country the way they did for a reason.

Trying to correct it may cause us more grief than it’s worth. Is removing “In God we trust” really a big enough issue that we have to go to all the trouble to collect all the money and make all new coins and currency? I don’t think it is.

Christina Young

Freshman

Undeclared