By Roger Alford
Associated Press
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - An Atheist group that won a recent court victory to have a reference to "Almighty God" stricken from Kentucky's homeland security law doesn't contemplate legal challenges against more than 30 other divine mentions in state documents.
Edwin Kagin, national legal director for American Atheists Inc., said the group will mount challenges only in cases it believes it can clearly win. The latest Kentucky case, he said, is one of those, though its final disposition could ultimately be decided by an appeals court.
The attorney general's office is considering appealing the decision, though spokeswoman Shelley Johnson said Friday no decision has yet been made.
Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled Wednesday that references to a dependence on God in a law that created the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security is akin to establishing a religion, which the government is prohibited from doing under the state and national constitutions.
Last week's ruling prompted an outcry from Christian activists, including Martin Cothran, a policy analyst for the Kentucky Family Foundation.
"I just find it strange that you could say this kind of language is not appropriate in our law when it's actually in our constitution," Cothran said. "We're wondering if Judge Wingate may someday find the constitution unconstitutional."
Wingate said some 32 mentions of God in the state constitution, various laws and regulations don't pose the same kind of problem as does the one in the court case he presided over.
"There is no question," Wingate said, "that both the United States Constitution and the Kentucky Constitution permit a passing reference to Almighty God."
The General Assembly, in drafting the law that established the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security, required the publication of training materials that stressed "a dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth."
It also required a plaque to be placed at the entrance to the state's Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort that said, in part, "the safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."
The reference to God in the homeland security law, Wingate concluded, "places an affirmative duty to rely on Almighty God" to protect the state. "This," he said, "makes the statute exceptional among thousands of others, and therefore, unconstitutional."
Kagin said people shouldn't necessarily expect his group to challenge other passing references to God in state laws, regulations and the state constitution.
"It has been in the past the view of American Atheists and other organizations to file the case even if you know you can't win," Kagin said. "I have changed that policy. Our policy now is to file only those cases that we can win."
Kagin, of Union in northern Kentucky, said that means American Atheists will deal only with legal questions that have the potential to create case law that would strengthen separation of church and state. The group won't challenge casual mentions of God in government documents and the brief prayers that open sessions of the Supreme Court.
The homeland security law, Kagin said, went beyond ceremonial mentions of God. He called it "breathtakingly" unconstitutional.
"When I saw this case, I said this on its face is unconstitutional, and this case we must take," he said. "If this case were to have been lost, church-state separation, in Kentucky at least, would have been in very bad trouble."
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