9TH CIRCUIT COURT: PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Fox News ^

[Recovering_Democrat]

UNBELIEVABLE. BREAKING ON FOX: SF APPEALS COURT SAYS PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE ENDORSES RELIGION, AND IS THEREBY UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

[mc5cents]

They don't want to peacefully coexist. They seek to eliminate religion from all public life. Pretty soon, if you are a soldier, or a Senator, but you go to church, you too will be 'unconstitutional'...

It's called peeing in the punchbowl. You don't like spiked punch? Drink the soft drink. Leave my punchbowl alone!

[E Rocc]

Somehow I don't see this as justification for removing ANY and ALL references to God from government funded schools. And as I stated earlier, the concept of the existence of God is not a religion, but a commonly held belief amongst mankind.

Commonly perhaps. By no means whatsoever universally. The idea that we as a nation are subservient to God, that is absolutely a religious concept.

I don't see the part of the letter where Separation was qualified, modified, or hedged upon.

In any case, I'd hate to see the repurcussions if this ruling is allowed to stand. It would be a declaration that we are no longer a Nation under God. As such, I'd bet there would be some serious consequences associated with that.

Where in the Constitution is the nation's subservience to God declared? Indeed, there were several attempts through the years to add an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ to the Constitution, the latest sponsored by John Anderson. They were all defeated.

-Eric

[E Rocc]

You forget. For some people (a lot of people, judging from the reaction) not mentioning god is exactly the same as outright stating "there is no god". As such, by removing "under god" from the pledge it instantly implies that the pledge is declaring that there exist no gods at all.

I don't understand that logic, but there it is.

You may be right about the logic, I don't understand it either. God is not mentioned in the Constitution either (except as part of a dating convention). I suppose by their logic it is an atheistic document.

-Eric

[GailA]

John Wayne's reading of the Pledge of Allegiance

This is from the same album "Face the Flag"...

'I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG'

What do these words mean to you? To me they say, "Thank you, America, for your strength, your courage and for your freedom....which has been a beacon to the world for two hundred years."

'OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'

....Whose bright stars are fifty states...each bearing it's own stamp of individuality. People...two-hundred million strong...people...who have come to her from all corners of the earth.

'AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS'

A land of laws...which an ingenious system of checks and balances that allows no man to become a tyrant...and lets no group prevail...if their power is not tempered with a real concern for the government...a land where the right of dissent and of free speech is jealously guarded...where the ballot box is the sword...and the people its wielder.

'ONE NATION...UNDER GOD!'

A land where freedom of worship is a cornerstone of her being. A land graced with temples and churches, synagogues and alters, that rise in profusion to embrace all the religions of the world.

'INDIVISIBLE'

A land forged by the hot steel of raw courage...and formed forever...by the awful crucible...of civil war.

'WITH LIBERTY'

Where man in pursuit of an honest life will not be denied his chance...where her citizens move freely within her vast borders without hindrance of fear...a land brimming with opportunity...where freedom of choice, is the guideline for all.

'AND JUSTICE'

The courts of our land are open to all. Its wheels of justice grind for all causes...all people. They look to every avenue for justice...every concern of the law, and they temper their reasoning with mercy...

'FOR ALL'

JM

"Just a thin line drawn between, being a genius or insane" -- Iron Maiden

JOHN WAYNE

[mc5cents]

Even if "God was imposed" this still would not be establishing a state sanctioned religion and is therefore not unconstitutional on any grounds.

I know that I'm fighting a losing battle here but, the constitution does NOT prohibit the establishment of a STATE religion. States are free to do what they want in regards to religion. At least that is what the founders had in mind way back then. Else many of the states at the time would not have signed on to a national governmenet. It prohibits CONGRESS from establishing a national religion. It also specificly says that CONGRESS cannot prohibit the free exercise of religion. It seems pretty straight foward to me, but over the years it has morphed into something that none of the members of the original colonies would recognize.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

The part-time resident of Fort Lauderdale is suing on behalf of his daughter, 5.

The saddest part of this in re Newdow? He's a coward for claiming he's doing this on behalf of his daughter. He didn't want her to feel like an outsider while others said the Pledge and she didn't?

Hey genius---now everybody on planet Earth knows who you are and who she is, and your Anti-American attitude has made you a pariah.

No, your daughter's not going to feel like an outsider at all . . . .

WHAT A TOOL.

[hobbes1]

I wrote to the School system and suggested they use this instead..

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -

[Fury]

From post 226:

...PLEASE. This is all about Newdow's ego-trip and trying to force his personal belief system on everybody else. Kids have no rights; the U.S. Constitution DOES NOT APPLY to kids.

Interesting point. I wonder what could be done if the children, on their own, decided to cite the POA? Would the school district attempt to stop them>

[maxwell]

I wonder what could be done if the children, on their own, decided to cite the POA? Would the school district attempt to stop them

Well what happens when kids decide, on their own, to pray before football games? Somebody somewhere is crapping their pants.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Exactly. On another thread, I tried to explain this to a self-proclaimed atheist:

Read Locke's 2nd Treatise. God is the foundation of natural law. Natural law is the foundation of the United States. Without God's natural law, law is arbitrary, man-made, and rights can be revoked at any time by any of man's governments.

Without natural law, rights mean absolutely nothing. Zero.

That's what "under God" means.

[Sid Rich]

Great post.

[DrCarl]

>However, despite any censorship on the part of your ilk, I will believe what I wish and I am free to state those beliefs.

Pardon me for being so blunt but I'm afraid this is very simple stuff and yet you are not following. I don't care if you worship the feathered serpent Quetzaquatl on the steps of your stone pyramid each morning before leaving for work. What I do care about is the Bill of Rights. See the very first thing it says? "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." Well, forcing school children to listen to their teachers in public school tell them that we are one nation, under God, would be to respect the establishment of religion. God = Religion. See how simple this is?

Look: The left doesn't like the Second Amendment and they want us to make believe it isn't there. You don't like the First Amendment and you want us to make believe it isn't there. Me? I'm an American and I wish you weren't here.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Well, forcing school children to listen to their teachers in public school tell them that we are one nation, under God, would be to respect the establishment of religion. God = Religion. See how simple this is?

Absolutely false. I am one of the most irreligious people here on FR, and I'm an admitted libertine to boot. Yet I completely believe in God. I am positive God exists.

Religion is a system of interpreting God, often corrupted by man's fallibility. It's like saying justice = law.

[LiberationIT]

Bully for you. You found a word to quibble with. Any substantive comment?

[RonF]

You state, in support of the thesis that for the state to require teachers to lead the recitation of the PoA in the public schools is not unconstitutional:

"With due respect, the Establishment Clause does not mention "religious speech". It does refer to an "establishment of religion", which I believe at that time referred primarily to an ecclesiastical establishment of a national Christian denomination, ...."

You then quote Thomas Jefferson, as saying:

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted [prevented] by the Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline or practices. Clearly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the States. "

Isn't requiring a teacher to lead the PoA with the words "under God" intermeddling with religious institutions, doctrines, disciplines, or practices? It's not a religious exercise? Looks like one to me.

I'm also finding it interesting that many people seem to think that the several States are, under the Constitution, free to establish a State Church. Do you really think it's a good thing, and constitutional, for a State to establish a Church? To require every citizen of a State to attend (for example) Roman Catholic Mass every Sunday morning on pain of fines or imprisonment? To support their clergy with your tax money? Think about that....

[DrCarl]

>"I am one of the most irreligious people here on FR"

>"I completely believe in God. I am positive God exists."

I don't know who worries me more, the anti-gunners or the religious fanatics. I do wish we, as a nation, would simply stick to the guidellines offered by the Bill of Rights. Man, if the Founders could come back to life, would they ever be pissed off.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

I do wish we, as a nation, would simply stick to the guidellines offered by the Bill of Rights. Man, if the Founders could come back to life, would they ever be pissed off.

I agree. I believe they'd be most pissed at the 9th circuit for its complete inability to interpret the meaning of their brilliant words.

God--->natural law---->US Constitution. Take away God, and the Constitution is meaningless.

[KC_Conspirator]

I am just glad that the national reaction to this act of judicial activism has been wholeheartedly against them. Their actions are arrogant, athiest, elitist, and exclusionary. It has even been suggested that the specific two judges are "too far out of the mainstream" and "should be kicked off the bench".

[Charles_Bingley]

Anyway, let's look on the bright side of yesterday's Appeal decision out west. It was about "one nation, under God." the English version. It shouldn't have any effect on Southern California.

Una nacion, bajo Dios

[FormerLurker]

Commonly perhaps. By no means whatsoever universally. The idea that we as a nation are subservient to God, that is absolutely a religious concept. Not quite. The idea that we as a nation are subservient to Jesus, Allah, or the ju-ju-god are religious concepts. The concept that we as a nation are under the guidance of a higher power, that power being the creative force of the universe, is not a religious concept.

Those who would want to say that this country was founded on a principle that man is supreme and answers to no higher power is simply wrong. If you look at the Declaration of Independence, it mentions God and the Creator several times.

---

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

---

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

---

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
   Button Gwinnett
   Lyman Hall
   George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
   William Hooper
   Joseph Hewes
   John Penn
South Carolina:
   Edward Rutledge
   Thomas Heyward, Jr.
   Thomas Lynch, Jr.
   Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
   Robert Morris
   Benjamin Rush
   Benjamin Franklin
   John Morton
   George Clymer
   James Smith
   George Taylor
   James Wilson
   George Ross
Delaware:
   Caesar Rodney
   George Read
   Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
   William Floyd
   Philip Livingston
   Francis Lewis
   Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
   Richard Stockton
   John Witherspoon
   Francis Hopkinson
   John Hart
   Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
   Josiah Bartlett
   William Whipple
Massachusetts:
   Samuel Adams
   John Adams
   Robert Treat Paine
   Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
   Stephen Hopkins
   William Ellery
Connecticut:
   Roger Sherman
   Samuel Huntington
   William Williams
   Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
   Matthew Thornton

---

I don't see the part of the letter where Separation was qualified, modified, or hedged upon.

You are forgetting something quite important. This Separation is between CHURCH and STATE, not GOD and STATE. I see no indication that is what Jefferson or anyone else meant, and more than likely never dreamed that one day some people would interpret what they wrote as to mean that. When you look at the Declaration of Independence, you'll see that they DID in fact consider God to be the bestower of unalienable rights. It is this wording that has been used to end slavery, allow women to vote, and provide equal rights. It is also this wording that empowers the Bill of Rights.

Where in the Constitution is the nation's subservience to God declared?

Although it's not declared, it's generally accepted.

Indeed, there were several attempts through the years to add an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ to the Constitution, the latest sponsored by John Anderson. They were all defeated.

That of course would have been a religious assertion. The belief that Jesus is God is a religion, but the belief that there IS a God is not. Those who don't believe in a higher power aren't just being non-religious, they are ignoring certain universal truths which are plainly obvious. Even Albert Einstein, when asked why relativity worked the way it did (or something to that effect), answered "Because God made it that way". You can look at the word God in that abstraction as meaning 'that which is responsible for the state of being of all that is'. It is not a religious concept, but a philosophical one.