The Pledge_ A History of the Pledge of Allegiance - Jeffrey Owen Jones [71]
In the early years of challenge to the addition of “under God” to the Pledge, groups such as Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists, secularists, and, of course, atheists found one objection or another to being forced to acknowledge in reciting the Pledge to acknowledge one God, a specific version of God, or any God.
There were also some objections from ardently religious groups. For example, one interfaith group of religious scholars argued that “under God,” when uttered in a rote recitation of the Pledge, made God into a generic concept that “lead to a trivialization of faith.” Another group argued that if “under God” had become so religiously unimportant when saying the Pledge, then it actually ended up asking students “to take the name of the Lord in vain,” which violated one of the Ten Commandments.
Very few people in the vast majority of Americans who support the Pledge in every aspect of its current form have spent much time thinking about the multiplicity of layers of interpretation from one end of the faith spectrum to the other. And that’s the political challenge that the courts have tried to dodge since people have attempted to get “under God” judicially defined since the phrase was adopted in 1954.
Several cases worked their way through the court system only to be turned back at the Supreme Court level with the Court’s power to pick and choose exactly which cases it will hear.
It wasn’t until an unusual situation forced the Supreme Court’s hand in 2004 to hear the arguments on both sides.
*An exception was Congressman Kenneth Keating (R.-N.Y.), who objected to the change because it would damage a “work of American literature.” But he was representing his constituent David Bellamy, who did not want his father’s pledge changed again.
11. UNDER GOD
The catalyst in the most recent “under God” Supreme Court case was Michael A. Newdow. A practicing physician in San Francisco and a nonpracticing attorney (who would ultimately represent himself before the U.S. Supreme Court), Newdow was (and is) an atheist who confronted the issue of the Pledge because he did not want his young daughter to be forced to acknowledge any God by reciting the Pledge. Also, he argued, it wasn’t enough just to have the child refrain from either saying the Pledge in full or saying it at all since he felt that it would cause her to become a focus of scorn by other students and, perhaps, adults. In fact, he stated that simply making his daughter stand and listen to the Pledge violated First Amendment rights.
Similar cases had been brought before various courts in the past arguing similar points; Newdow had the tenacity to keep going. He brought a lawsuit against his daughter’s school district of Elk Grove, California. The suit was quickly rebuffed in 2000. But then Newdow presented his position on appeal in 2002 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Ninth Circuit has jurisdiction over nine states—Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Nevada, California, Hawaii, and Arizona—as well as the Pacific territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. The large geographic area encompasses a full spectrum of political leanings, from the traditionally liberal areas of San Francisco to the strongly conservative ones of Alaska, making any action about the Pledge ripe for controversy. But no one expected this decision: the Ninth Circuit actually decided in Newdow’s favor. This decision, in post-9/11 America, shocked much of the nation. The court declared that “under God” was unconstitutional