Atheists winning the money battle

I received an email recently that pointed out the design on the new dollar coin:




This morning I was just perusing the news when I can across this item trumpeting the new design of the penny. Here is what the penny looks like now:

From the AP story:

WASHINGTON (Sept. 26) - A penny for your thoughts will have extra meaning in 2009 - the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth and the 100th anniversary of the introduction of the Lincoln penny.

To commemorate the event, the U.S. Mint, at the direction of Congress, will introduce four rotating designs on the 1-cent coin for that year depicting different aspects of Lincoln's life.

Hmm. Something's missing. Can't quite put my finger on it. I'm sure the AP story will tell me:

Those designs will replace the engraving of the Lincoln Memorial on the "tails" side of the coin. The famous profile of Lincoln will remain on the "heads" side of the coin.

The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee, which provides recommendations on such matters, met Tuesday and got into a lively debate over what those rotating images should be.

They chose a log cabin depicting where Lincoln was born in 1809 for the first image, although two separate but similar drawings of the cabin received an equal number of votes.

Ah ha! Here it is:

"The Emancipation Proclamation is so significant to leave it off ... would be a terrible mistake," said Rita Laws, a former school teacher and a member of the advisory panel.

Uh...no. That's not quite it. Seems something else is being left off...

Not like I could expect the AP to figure it out anyway...