America's complicated history with religion and politics

One nation under God. In God we trust.  So help me God.   Religion and government: it's complicated…

Transcript

00:00So help me God, so help me God, so help me God, so help me God.

00:05A lot of Americans don't even know that the phrase, so help me God, is not in the Constitution.

00:20It's not part of the official oath.

00:22It's just been common practice for so long that we almost don't even hear it.

00:25In the United States, we have religious freedom, including separation of religion and government,

00:30which would actually make it unconstitutional to force any elected official to swear under

00:36God or on a Bible when they're being sworn into office.

00:55Those are just colloquial practices, and it's not part of our law.

01:18Some people think or believe that George Washington said it during the very first presidential

01:23oath of office, but the history record's actually really murky on that.

01:27So somewhere along the line, it became common practice.

01:39Many of our founders, in fact, Adams, John Quincy Adams, Thomas Jefferson, a number of

01:47our founders didn't use a Bible.

01:49They used books of law or no book at all.

01:53In more recent times, you've had members of Congress, like Representative Keith Ellison,

01:58who was the first Muslim member of Congress, and he chose to be sworn in on a Quran that

02:03had been owned by Thomas Jefferson.

02:05Whether or not an elected official, be that the president of the United States or your

02:09local school board member, swears in on a Bible is absolutely a matter of choice.

02:23The founders of this country were really deeply committed to religious freedom, to separation

02:32of church and state for white people.

02:35They didn't provide that same religious freedom to enslaved people who were not entitled to

02:41practice their religions, either their native religions or their adopted Christian religions.

02:46Our founders didn't extend religious freedom to native people who were not only forced

02:51off their sacred lands, but violently stripped of their native religion.

03:09When the phrase One Nation Under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, it was actually

03:15a pastor here in Washington, D.C. that convinced Eisenhower, President Eisenhower, to add that

03:21phrase.

03:22And at the time, he said, anyone who's not willing to profess a Christian ideal is not

03:27an American, is not living by the American ideal.

03:40When we start to mix government and religion, the path down the road is much of what we're

03:47seeing today, or many of the laws that we've seen over the last few years that allow foster

03:54care agencies to take government money, but then discriminate against Jewish foster parents

04:02or LGBTQ foster parents.

04:04This isn't about Christians and atheists.

04:08This isn't about atheists wanting there to be no Christians in public life.

04:13This is ultimately about saying religious freedom is a shield to protect, not a sword

04:18to harm others.