Newdow and the Pledge

"...but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
9/15/05
 

Contrary to what people think, Michael Newdow doesn’t have anything against the pledge. He’s perfectly happy to say it. He says it exactly the way it was written when Congress first approved it in 1942: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

It’s safe to say that 95% of the people living in America would have no problem with that, the traditional Pledge of Allegiance. The remainder are members of groups such as Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah’s Witnesses, or who are libertarian/anarchists, and have their own generally benign reasons for not wishing to recite a pledge to the state. And in America, if the pledge is to mean anything at all, they must be free of any coercion to have to utter it. That’s the approach Newdow has (for details, go to http://www.restorethepledge.com/). It’s a very sensible, very fair, very AMERICAN approach.

So the political Christians did what they always do when challenged: they started lying, loudly and persistently, about Newdow and his case. CBN, the trash network run by Pat Robertson, began their story on Newdow by writing, “The Pledge of Allegiance has again been banned in certain California schools – and it is because of a case brought by atheist Michael Newdow.”

Well, no. It hasn’t been banned. It only applies to the school districts in the Sacramento area that the litigants are from, and teachers are free to use the original, traditional form of the pledge. The ONLY issue of contention is the use of the words “under God” Newdow argues that it establishes a state endorsement of prayer on a captive audience under coercive conditions, in which any atheist who refuses to utter the little prayer in the quote is liable to have his patriotism questioned.

CCN, the cleverly-named “Christian Communications Network” promptly started babbling about “victims of judicial activism”, referring, apparently to those poor benighted souls that have been thrown in the death camps for daring to breathe the name “Jesus” in public.

Oh, wait. They CAN do that. There are no death camps. Christian churches can meet on Sunday, or any damn day they want, and they can own television and radio stations. They just are victims because they can’t steal the free and secular government of the United States and appropriate it as a sound board for their religious propaganda. Poor babies!

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton, who issued the decision, noted that he was in the jurisdiction of the Ninth District, which had previously ruled the religious pledge unconstitutional on the grounds that it violated separation of church and state.

People talk about how Newdow “lost” the case before the Supreme Court in 2002, but in fact, the Court punted, ruling that he didn’t have standing to bring the case because he didn’t have full custody of his daughter. It was a ridiculous ruling by a timid Court that was unwilling to face up to its constitutional duties in the face of rabid and frothing Christian rage.

Which meant that the last word by a court, held in abeyance but not struck down, was that coercing kids to recite the pledge with the prayer in it was an illegal violation of the first amendment rights of the children.

All poor Judge Karlton – who is probably already getting death threats from right wing lovers of the Constitution and followers of the Prince of Peace – did was acknowledge that the ruling of the court that was superior to him had already set precedent, and he could only uphold the precedent.

Ever notice how the right wingers love to tell us that those two little words don’t really matter, aren’t that important, and certainly aren’t a prayer, but are almost willing to start a civil war over their removal and are certainly willing to lie their heads off in order to vilify anyone who wants them removed?

So Newdow, who impressed court observers with his eloquence and keen grasp of the legalities of the debate, is going back to the SC. And he goes armed with an argument that the court cannot face: the inclusion of the words “under God” in a school ritual that children are expected to engage in is a coercive impressing of religion by a government entity, and thus a strong violation of the first amendment.

Roberts will most likely be the Chief Justice at that point, and should that be the case, it’s going to be an excellent opportunity to find out if he’s an honest judge, or a right wing ideologue posing as a judge.

We’re going to hear a LOT of lies from the right about all this. They will try to claim, falsely, that Newdow and Karlton want the entire pledge struck down. They will claim that government is intruding on the free exercise of religion, also false. The government, at most, will be telling the zealots that they may not appropriate government as a sound board for their religion. And, the right wing being the class act that it is, we’ll hear all sorts of unsavory things about Newdow’s personal life, almost certainly twisted, if not flat-out invented.

These are the moral, godly patriots who are here to protect you from freedom, you see.

And of course, we’ll hear all about how “wall of separation” isn’t in the Constitution (and it isn’t: Jefferson used it in a letter to a Baptist church, assuring them that they would not find themselves discriminated against by the largely Episcopalian government) and that the first amendment stops Congress, and Congress only, from passing laws respecting an establishment of religion. In other words, any other government CAN pass laws about religion, their argument goes. Or freedom of speech. Or redress of grievances. Thus making those rights completely moot.

But the founders DID want to keep government and religion as separate as humanly possible. That’s why the penultimate phrase in the Constitution, and the ONLY phrase in the Constitution that, by it’s own wording, cannot be amended, is this: “...but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

If the state cannot ask what religion their hirelings practice, it should seem pretty obvious the founders didn't want them proselytizing for any particular religion, wouldn't you say?