Ceremonial deism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ceremonial deism is a legal term used in the United States for nominally religious statements and practices deemed to be merely ritual and non-religious through long customary usage. Proposed examples of ceremonial deism include the reference to God introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, and the phrase "In God We Trust" added to U.S. bills in 1957.
The term was coined in 1962 by the then-dean of Yale Law School, Eugene Rostow, and has been used since 1963 by the Supreme Court of the United States to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Neither of the above two examples have yet been ruled upon by the Supreme Court.
