Passage of Senate Bill 280 in the 2025 West Virginia Legislature’s regular session requiring all public schools, including public colleges and universities, to prominently display signage reading “In God We Trust†in a “conspicuous location†in a main building with public access was a new frivolous and nonsensical low following a decade of such lows under Republican “leadership.â€
Now, as Caity Coyne recently reported for West Virginia Watch, West Virginia has received 2,500 donated signs to meet the display requirements from two right-wing authoritarian Christian outfits, which the governor and SB 280 sponsor state Sen. Mike Azinger, R-Wood, couldn’t wait to show off at a news conference on Sept. 8 inside the Capitol Complex.
Sen. Azinger has “represented†the state Senate district in which I live since first winning election for an unexpired term to the seat in 2016. This kind of pointless performative piety is what Azinger has become known for, mindlessly wasting taxpayer time and dime under the golden dome in a state that’s in desperate need of policy solutions for real and dire problems.
“In God We Trust†became a national motto during the McCarthy Era 1950s, the same decade during which the phrase was first added to paper currency and the words “Under God†were first added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Manufactured anti-communist hysterics led to theocratic theatrics as red scare politics became the new, not-so-secret weapon of a political right that was terrified of the New Deal’s popularity and of the Supreme Court under Earl Warren, especially after the court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ending racial segregation in schools.
Those same fear-based, regressive politics have seen a 21st century revival in the Trump era and modern Christian theocrats (more commonly referred to as Christian nationalists) are gettin’ while the gettin’s good under a 6-3 authoritarian Christan Supreme Court majority on the Roberts Court. President Donald Trump is playing along nicely with his so-called “Religious Liberty Commission†and vows to “protect prayer in public schools†under new Department of Education guidance — convenient tools of distraction as the details continue to come to light of Trump’s longtime close friendship with child predator Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide while incarcerated in 2019.
At this point, anyone who’s been paying even a little attention to current events in West Virginia knows how much our public schools are struggling. Underpaid teachers, unaddressed PEIA cost concerns, our counties hemorrhaging population (especially our young people) are all major problems, along with diversion of our tax dollars to unaccountable private (including religious) schooling and homeschooling through programs like the expanded Hope Scholarship. These challenges the system of public education faces demand public policy responses.
What do we get instead? Displays that must be at least 8.5-by-11 inches in size reminding schoolchildren and college attendees that, though their Legislature is failing them, it wants them to remember that “we†trust in a Christian god.Â
These displays are just more proof, were any needed, that improving public education is not a goal of the Republican Party. It hasn’t been a goal of the political right since at least Brown v. Board. This is just another in a long line of reactionary efforts to undo the societal progress of the 20th century. It’s not new to West Virginia but it’s just as dangerous to free thought, free speech and freedom of association as it was in the past.
There is no freedom of religion without freedom from religion. There is no religious liberty without religious pluralism and a secular government at all levels. If you truly trust in a god, you’re not so insecure about it that you need to plaster coercive language on public property so you can pretend all who set foot there share your trust in your chosen deity. To quote from the founders, “E Pluribus Unum.â€
