The Childress Police Department decided this month to place large decals with the motto on its patrol vehicles in response to violence against law enforcement officers across the country this year.

"I think with all the assaults happening on officers across the country... it's time we get back to where we once were," Police Chief Adam Garcia explained to a local newspaper.

However, the Wisconsin-based watchdog group Freedom From Religion Foundation says the decals are an illegal government endorsement of religion.

Rebecca Markert, an attorney for the group, says the First Amendment prohibits government from establishing or even preferring a religion. She said the growing number of law enforcement agencies adding the phrase are violating the separation of church and state.

In recent months, FFRF has filed dozens of complaints about similar decals used by law enforcement agencies in Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia.

Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for the Texas-based Liberty Institute, which specializes in religious liberty issues, rejected the argument.

He says the U.S. Supreme Court and other lower courts have repeatedly allowed the phrase as "part of the country's history and heritage."

Dys noted that other acts steeped in religious symbolism, like legislative prayers, courtroom oaths, and the Pledge of Allegiance are protected.

Charles Haynes, vice president of the Religious Freedom Center of the Newseum Institute in Washington, D.C. says the motto "in God we trust" originated on federal coins during the Civil War.

Congress approved it as the national motto in 1956.

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