Kentucky Homeland Security Cannot Require Dependence on God
A judge on Wednesday struck down a 2006 state law that required the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the commonwealth." ...
Homeland Security officials have been required for three years to credit "Almighty God" in their official reports and post a plaque with similar language at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Frankfort....
"This is the very reason the Establishment Clause was created: to protect the minority from the oppression of the majority," (Judge Thomas Wingate) wrote. "The commonwealth’s history does not exclude God from the statutes, but it had never permitted the General Assembly to demand that its citizens depend on Almighty God."
State Rep. Tom Riner, D-Louisville, a Southern Baptist minister, placed the "Almighty God" language into a homeland security bill without much notice.
Riner said Wednesday that he is unhappy with the judge’s ruling. The way he wrote the law, he said, it did not mandate that Kentuckians depend on God for their safety, it simply acknowledged that government without God cannot protect its citizens.
