Supreme Court Challenge to Pledge of Allegiance Dismissed

[AngelV]

Supreme Court Dismisses Pledge Case on Technicality
Justices Do Not Decide Constitutionality of Reference to God in Pledge of Allegiance
The Associated Press (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40279-2004Jun14.html)
Monday, June 14, 2004; 10:23 AM

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court at least temporarily preserved the phrase "one nation, under God," in the Pledge of Allegiance Monday, ruling that a California atheist could not challenge the patriotic oath.

The procedural ruling did not directly address whether the pledge recited by generations of American schoolchildren is an unconstitutional blending of church and state.

The court said the atheist could not sue to ban the pledge from his daughter's school and others because he did not have legal authority to speak for her.

The father, Michael Newdow, is in a protracted custody fight with the girl's mother. He does not have sufficient custody of the child to qualify as her legal representative, eight members of the court said. Justice Antonin Scalia did not participate in the case.

[RedRigmaJacket]

thank God!

[butter_of_69]

At least that article's not biased or anything.

[the happy prole]

Originally posted by Frost
Good Lord...how lame

Why? It's a good decision.

[classicgrrl]

they only make little kids do it because they don't have a clue what a pledge is let alone what they are pledging to....

[DaysWithoutEnd]

Boo....

They refuse to take the case on a technicality, and then they write in the decision about how they would've said it was constitutional anyway.

Just wait till i have kids....

[the happy prole]

Frost, re-read the decision.

The father is in a custody battle. Thus he can't establish that he has standing to sue on behalf of his daughter.

The decision has nothing to do with the constitutionality of the Pledge.

[aqualou]

Originally posted by classicgrrl
they only make little kids do it because they don't have a clue what a pledge is let alone what they are pledging to....
Get 'em hooked when they're young, just like cigarettes!
I blame communion for my alcoholism. Can I sue?

[the happy prole]

ahh. . . my bad. I got RRJ's reference but missed yours.

[monkey neck]

Good.

Now we can focus on the important trials like Kobe, Scott Peterson, and the Martha re-trial.:p

[classicgrrl]

that is one cute damn doggie.....

[monkey neck]

Too bad it's wearing a collar filled with EXPLOSIVES!!!! Stinkin terrorist yorkies!

[Slar]

Personally I think they took the short way out because they didn't want to get stuck with an unpopular decision in an election year. This will come back and eventually will be ruled unconstitutional.

"The 'Under God' addition, by identifying patriotism with religion, excludes agnostics, atheists and all believers in some deity or deities other than the Christian God. Nor does the 'under God' addition meet Theodore Roosevelt's test of promoting reverence and appealing to high emotions. Doubtless all the crooks in the corporate community have recited the pledge without notably improving their conduct."--Arthur Schlesinger Jr. ("When Patriotism Wasn't Religious," New York Times, July 7, 2002)

"The soundness of the decision is best revealed when it is measured against the objections to it. Prominent politicians, rather than offering reasoned responses to a challenging constitutional question, merely came up with sound bites condemning what they knew was an unpopular decision." --Westchester News Editoral, NY ( June 28, 2002)

"The response to the court's decision exposed the fundamentalism that weaves through American public life, where many . . . confuse the worship of God with patriotism. . . . praise these two appeal judges--Alfred Goodwin and Stephen Reinhardt--for rendering a gutsy decision and for flushing American faundamentalism into the open."--Nation columnist David Corn ("I Pledge Allegiance to Fundamentalism in the United States of America. . .", Tompaine.com, July 16, 2002)

"Those two words went into the pledge nearly 50 years ago, and for the most deplorable reason. . . . the pledge had become yet another cold-war litmus test. The words 'under God' were a way to indicate that America was better than other nations--we were, after all, under the direct protection of the deity--and adding them to the pledge was another way of excluding, of saying that believers were real Americans and skeptics were not.
7 ". . . what was embarrassing was watching all those people--Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives--shout 'under God' on the Senate floor, as though government were a pep rally and they were on the sanctified squad. . . . [Now our nation] settles for sloganeering, demonizing and politicking."--Anna Quindlen ("Indivisible? Wanna Bet?" The Last Word, Newsweek, July 15, 2002)