One of the most common refrains those of us in the queer community hear is something along the lines of, “we don’t care what you do in the bedroom, just don’t shove it down our throats!”

This is usually in response to something innocuous, like a queer couple holding hands in public while walking down Main Street, or perhaps when a rainbow flag is flown from a home or business during June. Proclamations by City Councils or County Board of Supervisors really set some people off.

Oddly, however, that is a one-way outrage street.

Christians love to “shove it down our throat” when they’re proselytizing about their god. Today’s example is courtesy of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors.

During today’s (December 12, 2023) Board meeting, they approved the addition of “IN GOD WE TRUST” to the chambers. Board Chair Dennis Townsend, District 5 (Porterville area), recently proposed adding the phrase to a wall in the chambers, supposedly as a nod to the United States Motto, saying in the November 28th meeting that “… in god we trust is how our nation was founded, and even in that it is not specific” to any particular god.

However…

Maybe I missed it in the multitude of gods believed in over the years, and the somewhat smaller group with active believers around the world and in Tulare County today, but, as far as I know, only one particular god is referred to as GOD. That’s the Christian god, also known as Yahweh or Jehovah.

So to claim the Christian god is not necessarily the one being referred to when “IN GOD WE TRUST” is prominently displayed is disingenuous. It’s also not the case, in spite of fundamentalist Christians going on otherwise, that this nation was founded as a Christian nation, and with the Bible being a primary source of the nation’s underpinnings.

On June 10, 1797, President John Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli, after a unanimous vote to approve by the United States Senate. Article 11 of that treaty states, in part, that “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…” There are other instances of the founders making it clear they were not Christians and were not basing the new nation on that faith system. Many were deists, and had a belief in a god, but not necessarily the Christian version.

And yet, “IN GOD WE TRUST”.

Kudos to Supervisor Amy Shuklian for her actions which changed the sign from an obvious Christian proselytization to something more in line with the alleged homage to the United States. She proposed, and was successful in adding, “E Pluribus Unum” to the signage. In the final vote Supervisor Shuklian voted against the installation, but was outvoted by the rest of the Board.

If the goal was really to show respect for the founding of the United States, and display something that encompasses that which the nation is really based upon, I think this would have been more appropriate:

But that doesn’t shove anything down anyone’s throat, does it?