Lafayette City Hall To Display “In God We Trust”

The U.S. national motto, "In God we Trust" will soon be prominently displayed at Lafayette's City Hall after the council approved a measure to do so at tonight's Lafayette City-Parish Council meeting.

"There should not have been a better time to implement this because of the direction a lot of our neighbors are taking," Councilman William Theriot said about the measure brought before the council by City-Parish President Joey Durel. "I think it is a great resolution. I hope future councils and government officials realize that."

Though the measure was passed by a unanimous vote, several audience members spoke out in opposition to the idea that God should be mentioned in a government's motto, whether that government be the parish or the nation.

Lafayette Atheists and Freethinkers Forum organizer Alexander Songe suggested an alternate option that the council should consider. He suggested it adopt "E Pluribus Unum" ("From One Many" in Latin) as a motto that encourages social unity and common values.

"It moves us in the wrong direction by removing the cornerstone of the separation of church and state," Heywood Martin told the council before quoting several of the nation's founding fathers' descriptions of the separation of church and state.