Good god…Mississippi replacing racism with religion on state flag

It’s not easy being a non-theist (the term we prefer to the pejorative ‘atheist’). Seven states still have laws banning us from seeking elective office (tho unenforceable). No openly non-theist in our 244 years has run for president. Why? When a voter poll shows that overall, the electorate is more comfortable with a Black, Hispanic, gay, female or socialist presidential candidate, than a non-theist, we know we’ve got a long slog ahead to respectability.

The American Experiment that heralded separation of church and state in the Constitution of 1787, also has a long slog ahead, this one to decency regarding that hallowed concept. After 180 years, the terrific US motto ‘E Pluribus Unum’ (Out of many, one) was replaced in 1956 with ‘In God We Trust’. That was likely a sop to the McCarthyite wing of the electorate obsessed with godless communism.

Today brought joyous news that Mississippi’s state flag, the last to display the white supremacist, pro slavery confederate battle flag, would be removed after 126 years. But the news was a tad bittersweet as the law mandates the battle flag be replaced with, yep…’In God We Trust’. No doubt the legislature is throwing a bone to the dead-ender white majority in Mississippi being deprived of its last remaining gasp of the old, gallant South. Now, besides our currency and the Florida state flag, we’re stuck with Mississippi joining in to thumb its nose at separation of church and state, disparaging us 10 million non-theists. The new law sets up a procedure to complete the flag revision. How bout if they incorporate humorist Jean Shepherd’s famous take on the offensive motto with ‘In God We Trust…all others pay cash’?