A.G. Gancarski
HB 839, a bill requiring school districts to display Florida’s motto “In God We Trust,” cleared its final House committee stop Wednesday.
The bill requires display in all “school buildings” in a given district, including school district structures.
The House Education committee cleared the bill Wednesday with just one no vote, with Republicans and Democrats alike generally agreeing with Kim Daniels, the Jacksonville Democratic co-sponsor of the bill, that the motto should be displayed.
Jason Fischer and Jay Fant, Daniels’ Republican colleagues from Jacksonville, were among the supporters.
Questions included the funding for the initiative; the bill left somewhat vague exactly where the motto would be displayed.
However, one committee member — Jennifer Sullivan of Eustis — noted that a laminated piece of paper with the motto and the state flag proved to be sufficient in her office.
Committee chair Mike Bileca lauded Daniels for having the “courage to take this issue on,” setting up an impassioned close from the first-term Jacksonville Democrat.
“This is not Communist China,” Daniels noted. “This is America … on a bad day, the greatest country in the world. The disrespect against flag and country makes me sick.”
Daniels added that the motto is a “symbol that represents something that we need to get back to,” and the bill comes from the “spiritual, not natural realm.”
The Senate version of the bill has yet to be put on a committee agenda, again illustrating divergent priorities between the two legislative bodies.
3 comments
Stan Yoder
February 8, 2018 at 12:53 am
If it comes from a “spiritual, not a natural realm”, then it has no business being foisted upon secular schools as a government mandate. See the First Amendment to the US Constitution for reference.
Brien Doyle
February 8, 2018 at 5:38 am
Thomas Jefferson wrote: “What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
Robert Haskins
February 9, 2018 at 7:33 am
Keep religion in your churches, synagogues and mosques but out of the public schools. This bill would violate our Florida Constitution regarding the separation of church and state.
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