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Supreme Court Hears Pledge Arguments
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Also by Rachel Strauch-Nelson:
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- Decision to ban pledge in Madison schools re-examined (October 9, 2001)
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by Rachel Strauch-Nelson
Monday, March 29, 2004
The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday concerning the appropriateness of the phrase “under God” in daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.
This comes just two years after the passing of a Wisconsin law requiring all schools to offer either the pledge or national anthem.
Dr. Michael Newdow, who sued the California public school district his 9–year-old daughter attends, presented his arguments against the pledge on behalf of himself and his daughter.
“I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God,” Newdow said.
When Justice Stephen Breyer suggested to Newdow that the term “God” is used as a more “broad” and “generic” term, Newdow responded the phrase has more specific significance.
“It says ‘under God.’ That’s as purely religious as you can get,” he said. “I don’t think that I can include ‘under God’ to mean ‘no God.’ I deny the existence of God.”
Congress added the two-word phrase during the Cold War as an attempt to separate America from “Godless communism.”
A San Francisco Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Newdow last year, saying the phrase “under God” renders the pledge a “profession of religious belief.”
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who defended the existing pledge, argued it, “is not what this Court has said the Establishment Clause protects against.”
Brian Fahlings, senior trial attorney for the American Family Association, agreed.
“An attempt to translate it into a violation of the establishment clause is an absurdity,” he said, adding that there is an “undeniable tradition in our country of the acknowledgement of God.”
The case has prompted nationwide debate over the pledge. Madison schools currently offer either the pledge or the national anthem daily. Every time the pledge is read, so is a disclaimer, reminding students “participation in the pledge is voluntary.”
Bill Keys, president of the Madison School Board, said controversy over the pledge started in 2001, when a state law was passed requiring every school to offer the pledge or national anthem every day.
“Within a week, there were parents, teachers and students upset about having to be coerced into participating or not participating,” Keys said, adding that it’s hard to estimate how many students and teachers refrain from reciting the pledge.
Keys has been active in defending students’ right not to participate in the pledge, and says he has received many letters and calls thanking him for taking this stance.
The Court’s ruling will be anxiously awaited by many. Because of criticism of the ninth circuit’s ruling in a speech, Justice Antonin Scalia will not weigh in on the case. This leaves the chance of a four to four tie, which would automatically uphold the appeals court’s ruling.
“There’s a principle here,” Newdow
said at the end of his testimony, “and I’m hoping the court
will uphold this principle so that we can finally go back and have
every
American want to stand up, face the flag, place their hand over
their heart and pledge to one nation, indivisible, not divided by
religion, with liberty and justice for all.”
