<P> "In God We Trust" as a national motto and on U.S. currency has been the subject of numerous unsuccessful lawsuits . The motto was first challenged in Aronow v. United States in 1970, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled: "It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency' In God We Trust' has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion . Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise ." The decision was cited in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a 2004 case on the Pledge of Allegiance . These acts of "ceremonial deism" are "protected from Establishment Clause scrutiny chiefly because they have lost through rote repetition any significant religious content". In Zorach v. Clauson (1952), the Supreme Court also held that the nation's "institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" and that government recognition of God does not constitute the establishment of a state church as the Constitution's authors intended to prohibit . </P> <P> Aside from constitutional objections, President Theodore Roosevelt took issue with using the motto on coinage as he considered using God's name on money to be sacrilege . </P>

When was under god added to the declaration of independence