So far I'm very happy with Abbott. He understands Texas and the Constitution. He needs to be in our prayers. There is so much working against him.
“’In God We Trust’ has survived every legal challenge,” said Gov. Greg Abbott Monday in support of the Childress, Texas Police Department’s decision to display the national motto on its patrol cars. Abbott sent a letter to the State Attorney General Ken Paxton supporting the Police Department’s choice.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) threatened the Department with legal action after their decision was made. Area members of the Texas Legislature then requested an Attorney General Opinion on the acceptability of the display.
“As the Supreme Court has held time and again, the Constitution commands acknowledgement and accommodation of religion, rather than hostility towards religion,” Abbott wrote. “Given these well-established principles, it is unsurprising that ‘In God We Trust’ has survived every legal challenge.”
“There can be no doubt that courts in Texas would uphold the constitutionality of the Childress Police Department’s decision to place ‘In God We Trust’ on the department’s patrol vehicles,” Abbott maintained. “If the Childress Police Department chooses to continue this patriotic display, it will have my full support.”
Abbott and Paxton have a strong history of defending Texas’s acknowledgments of religion. The State’s religious liberties challenges included:
In December 2014, the American Humanist Association sent a letter to the county judge in Cherokee County, Texas, demanding the removal of a courthouse nativity display. As then-Attorney General, Governor Abbott offered his support in the event that the organization followed through with the lawsuit. The organization did not follow through with the threat.
In December 2011, the FFRF sent a similar letter threatening to sue Henderson County, Texas, if the county refused to take down a nativity display on the courthouse grounds. Abbott offered his support and the organization backed down.
In October 2012, Abbott defended Kountze high school cheerleaders by taking head-on the lawsuit filed against them for including religious messages on their football game banners.
In 2011, Abbott's office submitted a legal brief asking a federal appeals court to uphold Medina Valley High School graduates’ constitutional rights to freely express their religious beliefs during graduation ceremonies.
In January 2009, after Abbott submitted a legal brief joined by all 50 state attorneys general, a federal judge cleared the way for President Barack Obama to include references to religion during his Presidential Inauguration.
In 2007, Attorney General Abbott defeated a lawsuit that attempted to remove the words “under God” from the Texas Pledge of Allegiance.
In 2005, Attorney General Abbott appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court and defended the State’s Ten Commandments monument, which stands on the Texas Capitol grounds. In that case, Van Orden v. Perry, the plaintiff sought to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the Capitol grounds, but Attorney General Abbott successfully argued that the monument was entirely constitutional.