This is ridiculous. Who knows if this is really why Sean Duffy is stepping down or his wife is a convenient excuse. Even if this is his real reason, so what? A pregnant wife who would like her husband to be around to help with the (counting on fingers) NINTH CHILD is not selfish. Is that what christianity teaches, that men need to be beta males and live far away from their wives while the wives raise children basically alone? No thanks! Sounds like a cult
Government officials in this country are not allowed to use public offices to promote their personal religion. So how is it that the officials are legally allowed to slap “In God We Trust” on our money, on the Capitol, and in our public schools?
It’s because courts have said that the religious motto is not, well, religious. Yes, despite the clear religious history of the motto, which was proposed by a preacher and pushed by Christian nationalists. Despite the congressmen who wanted the motto on our currency to help convert nonbelievers. Despite the fact that the new school laws are part of Project Blitz, a right wing Christian nationalist playbook.
Federal courts ignore this religious reality, choosing to focus instead on a legal fiction. Courts have ruledthat the phrase “In God We Trust,” which only expresses a religious sentiment, no longer has any “theological or ritualistic impact.” It’s secular to adopt a motto that not only expounds a belief in a god, but claims all citizens “trust” in him.
Courts have upheld other religious rituals and phrases using this same rationale; government prayers, “In God We Trust” as a motto, and “One Nation Under God” in the pledge are no longer religious because “any religious freight the words may have been meant to carry originally has long since been lost.” Put another way, they have “lost through rote repetition any significant religious content.”