listen children, enough is enough. please scroll up and look at the darkened blue bar at the top of all these posts. interestingly, it reads "Hot Deals." that is to say, it does not read any of the following:
religious discussion group
political discussion group
constitutional law discussion group
jacka$$ meeting forum
so please keep the discussion to hot deals...
but, since i've been riled up, i'll say this: unless you're ready to back up what you've got to say with support, please don't put forth mindless propositons. it simply is unproductive for one moron to say, out of the clear blue, that "[such and such] is an abomination to the so-called separation of church and state..." followed by successive ignoramuses who simply refute by saying "that's not true, you're dumb" or something to that effect.
as a constitutional law scholar, i can tell you that both sides have sound arguments. however, what you accept depends on where you're coming from...in a nutshell:
if you're a strict textualist- look no farther than the First Amendment; it is easily parsed into two clauses, one commonly known as the establishment clause (which is at issue here). the bill of rights applies to the federal government; essentially, the first ten amendments each limit the federal government's power to protect individual rights. the first amendment, in part, reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." whether printing "In God We Trust" constitutes the "mak[ing of a law] respecting [the] establishment of religion" will not be settled in the AnandTech Hot Deals forum; it will be settled (surprisingly!) before the Supreme Court.
if you're a "historical gloss" kind of guy- you will look at all of the founding father's writings and gather from them the general idea that they were all "Godly" folk. if not, they certainly put on such a good act they could have commanded top dollar in Hollywood today. the term, "historical gloss" generally refers to the fact that although the law may say one thing, historical practices have layed a "gloss" so to speak onto the law for so long that it would be just plain silly to abandon the practice.
if you read very liberally- the [anti]-establishment clause prohibits all of this. as a matter of fact, it prohibits the president from swearing on a Bible at his inauguration. this reading affords the First Amendment its most expansive view, namely, that it does not just prohibit the establishment of any one religion, but the advocation of any religion.
in the end, it matters not which viewpoint we adopt. unless your last name happens to be Rehnquist, Scalia, Kennedy, O'Connor, Thomas, Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg or Stevens (and you also happen to serve on the Supreme Court bench), your opinion will do little more than sway one mindless cretin this way or that. most people that have firmly established views are unlikely to waver.
as for me, i predict that this will eventually in some form or another, make it to the supreme court. based on the complexion of the current Supreme Court, for example, the ninth circuit ruling that the pledge could not be recited at a public school will be shot down. the pledge used to be mandatory; a supreme court case struck that. now it is absolutely voluntary...students are allowed to leave the room during the pledge if they prefer. in light of this, i cannot fathom the ninth circuit's ruling being upheld.
in any case, thanks to the original poster- i think this is indeed, a "hot deal" and nothing more.