Pledge of Allegiance in schools ruled constitutional.
Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with its reference to God in public schools doesn’t violate the U.S. Constitution’s separation of church and state, a federal appeals court ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco disagreed with Michael Newdow, an atheist who sued a school district near Sacramento, California, challenging the use of the phrase “under God” in the pledge.
“We hold that the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the establishment clause because Congress’ ostensible and predominant purpose was to inspire patriotism,” the court panel said in yesterday’s 2-1 decision. “For this reason, the phrase ‘one nation under God’ does not turn this patriotic exercise into a religious activity.”
The court reversed an injunction that had prohibited recitation of the pledge at the district’s schools.
You can read the 193-page decision here. (pdf)
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals first ruled the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional (2002), Jeffery Jay Lowder (Internet Infidels) supported the Court’s verdict, and I responded to the Lowder article here.