Their rationale is fallacious, of course. Proclaiming that the pledge "establishes religion" is absurd. First, it doesn't identify who or what this "God" is -- the pledge makes no definitive proclamation on the nature or identity of God. For the little 3rd grader who happens to be a secular humanist, "god" could be "We the People." For the Christian, it is "Christ." For the Jew, it is "Jehovah," and so forth. I suppose the only ones who should have a problem with the phrase "under God" are the godless atheists (sorry...superfluous redundancy), who apparently make up the majority of the 9th District Court of Appeals. The other problem with this is that the "establishment clause" of the 1st Amendment had to do with prohibiting Congress (not individual states, I might add) from establishing "The Church of the United States," much like there is a "Church of England," which would constitute the official religion or church of the US. The pledge of allegiance does not establish a particular sect or denomination or church. These judges are fools.
I'll guarantee you this: If federal law is enacted to delete "under God" from the pledge consistent with this court ruling, millions upon millions of people will continue to include it whenever they recite it, much to the shagrin of the athetists.
The main question is this: Are the judges more upset with the term "under God" in the pledge, or are they upset with the notion of anyone pledging allegiance to the United States?
Small wonder, as these traits are prerequisites of the liberal.
Though I am intellectually certain there is no God as some more sentient being, I am patriotically and morally convinced that there is something known to my fellow citizens and neighbors as God who/what is at the root of being, life, our nation and our moral fibre. When referring, with humble respect, to that Root of All, I will usually and gladly use the word "God", for that is how such is spoken of in my language.
One of the great wonders of this nation is that it doesn't matter that my "God" wears a different colour robe than yours.
It does matter very much that we understand and teach our children that our Freedom and Dignity comes from God, not from Washington, D.C.