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Mother Says Girl at Center of Pledge of Allegiance Fight Is No Atheist, Doesn't Mind Pledge
ap ^ | 7/11/02

Posted on 07/11/2002 6:32:36 PM PDT by knak

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The 8-year-old girl whose father successfully sued to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional has no problem with reciting the pledge at school, her mother said Thursday.

"I was concerned that the American public would be led to believe that my daughter is an atheist or that she has been harmed by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, including the words 'one nation under God,'" Sandra Banning said in a statement. "We are practicing Christians and are active in our church."

Banning never married Michael Newdow, the third-grader's father and the atheist behind the pledge lawsuit. She has full custody of the girl, which Newdow is challenging in court.

It was Banning's first public comment since the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Newdow that the words "under God," inserted by Congress in 1954, make the pledge an unconstitutional endorsement of religion. The ruling has been put on hold pending appeals.

Banning, who has hired lawyers in part to explore intervening in the case, said she hopes her efforts will lead to a reversal of the ruling. She also said her daughter "expressed sadness" after the ruling.

In his lawsuit, Newdow argued that his daughter was "injured" by being forced to listen to others recite the pledge at the Elk Grove Unified School District.

He said Thursday that he has the right to determine how she is raised.

"I have a right to send my child to a public school without the government inculcating any religious beliefs," he said.

Newdow also said that taking an 8-year-old to church doesn't mean the girl is choosing to be religious - and at any rate, it doesn't matter what the child believes.

"The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me," he said.

Some legal experts said the mother's revelation that the girl herself willingly recites the pledge in class could cast doubts on the legitimacy of the case.

Courts can only hear cases in which there is an injured party, and if there is no injury there is no grounds for a case, said Rory Little, a Hastings College of the Law professor who follows the 9th Circuit.

"The federal courts can't address anything unless it's a case of controversy," Little said. "You have to have injury."


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To: homeschool mama
Give my regards to your friend. She is showing great courage, knowing that the liberal assassins will be out in force. God Bless.
41 posted on 07/11/2002 9:11:16 PM PDT by He Rides A White Horse
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To: knak
I don't suppose that there is any chance now of actually discussing the article you posted on this thread, since those who have no sin and are qualified to cast the first stone have put the mother on trial here.

However, if anyone with legal knowledge gets this far down, I would like to know how the father could have legal standing to initiate the lawsuit if the mother has "full custody." If she has full custody, doesn't that mean that he has no right to act on the child's behalf in a court of law?

As for the rest, I think it takes a pretty disturbed mind to gang up on on the mother with this evidence before us of the father's foul manipulative use of his 8 year-old daughter to further his ideological goals. He has made her into a pawn in what is most definitely an attack on the religion in which she is being reared - that's one step from an abuser's state of mind: "The kid is a thing, that I can use as I see fit."

About the mother, we know only (a) that eight years or so ago she had sex outside marriage and got pregnant; (b) she is now an active church member and is bringing up her daughter in the Christian faith; (c) the way in which her daughter was used for anti-Christian purposes grieved her enough that she took the step of making a public statement, even though she surely knew that this would put the fact that she is an unmarried mother in newspapers all across the country and expose her to the mean-spiritedness of the self-righteous everywhere.

With that knowledge base, I would think that rushing to assume that she's a slut who has no business teaching in a decent Sunday school would risk bearing false witness against my neighbor a little too closely to be comfortable.

42 posted on 07/11/2002 9:15:51 PM PDT by Southern Federalist
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To: homeschool mama
Maybe your friend should realize that she didn't bring this child into the world alone. She may disagree with Newdow's views now, but that doesn't change the fact that he is still the girl's father, and it certainly hasn't stopped her from collecting childcare payments.

If she didn't want Newdow to participate in the child's upbringing, she should've chosen a different man to father her child.
43 posted on 07/11/2002 9:29:20 PM PDT by Tired of Taxes
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To: knak
She also said her daughter "expressed sadness" after the ruling.

Hmmm, so the "father" was the one who, by his suit, actually harmed the daughter for his own ulterior motives. No wonder the woman wised up and never married him.
44 posted on 07/11/2002 9:34:09 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: knak
"The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me," he said.

This pretty much sums it all up.
45 posted on 07/11/2002 9:35:25 PM PDT by aruanan
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To: knak
Maybe there's a court which could offer an opinion on the definition of "kook" so her father's status is clarified.
46 posted on 07/11/2002 10:07:02 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: aruanan; homeschool mama
The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me," he said. This pretty much sums it all up.

My thoughts exactly. Base human nature is always about "me". Someone at church (Calvary Chapel Grand Rapids) tonight was telling us about this story and said Pastor Chuck Smith had said the mother and daughter involved were Christians. Homeschoolmama, do they fellowship at a C.C.?

47 posted on 07/11/2002 10:07:40 PM PDT by gracex7
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To: aruanan
>>She also said her daughter "expressed sadness" after the ruling.

Wouldn't this make Newdow the one having done the injury to his own daughter? If you cant bring a case to the court unless there is some injured party & the daughter was NOT injured by the Pledge, it seems there is SOME case for injury here & Newdow appears to have DONE it.

Can I get a ban of Atheism here???

Can I get an AMEN!!!

48 posted on 07/11/2002 10:24:30 PM PDT by Wondervixen
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To: knak; JohnHuang2; dennisw
<< The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me," he said. >>

And there stands exposed the typical self-serving, egomaniaical, psychopathological, totalitarian, socialifascist terrorist.

Who, hoist only by his own petard, stands revealed as the employer of tactics that work in precisely the same way as those employed by those equally as cravenly cowardly islamafascist terrorists who have called some of their own "refugees;" have subsequently designated a percentage, "palestinians" and; later, "jihadists" and; when they are eventually brainwashed and incited beyond imbecilic and have become manaically-maddened anonymous mass-murderers; are called "martyrs."

I guess this Evil creep; standing exposed as one willing, at dire threat to her soul and to achieve only his own ends, to have strapped the explosives on his eight year old child and to have sent her tiny body out to blow up Our Beloved FRaternal Republic; sees her as a necessary "martyr," too? And to have thus rationalized and justified his own unmitigated Evil!

God save US FRom him -- and FRom every other of Evil's manifestations.
49 posted on 07/11/2002 10:29:14 PM PDT by Brian Allen
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To: knak
"The main thrust of this case is not my daughter, it's me," he said.

It's all about me me me!

No injury no case- as mentioned a week ago in another thread.

50 posted on 07/11/2002 11:46:59 PM PDT by Kay Soze
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To: Brian Allen
Did you happen to catch his interview with Ann Coulter tonight? It was sooo nice to see her shred him into little ribbons!
51 posted on 07/11/2002 11:52:49 PM PDT by Humidston
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To: knak
I believe the injured party here is the child. If I was the mother, I think I'd be inclined to sue HIM for abusing their daughter by dragging her into his fabricated lawsuit in the first place.

(Note to single women: Remember this lesson before hopping into bed with some stranger.)

I'm certain the mother will be burdened for the rest of her life, for ever sleeping with that slug!
52 posted on 07/12/2002 12:11:32 AM PDT by Humidston
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To: Brian Allen
Atheist daddy is a pig. A man on a stupid, self righteous crusade. There is no point to what he's doing except to piss off his fellow Americans. This much he has achieved.
53 posted on 07/12/2002 1:10:54 AM PDT by dennisw
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To: dennisw
<< Atheist daddy is a pig. A man on a stupid, self righteous crusade. There is no point to what he's doing except to piss off his fellow Americans. This much he has achieved. >>

Change only one or two words of that and you could be describing either or both, the Egyptian, Daschle Arafat -- or the Wog, Yasser Daschle.

Not to mention -- and starting with the Ninth Circuit, any of the hundreds of activist "Democrats" who pose as "judges" in our courts -- or any member of the vast treasonous, lying, looting, co-serial raping criminal enterprises the once posed as the Rodman-KKKli'toon "administration."

And/or the by now daisy-cutter-ed, one-time cave-cowering, mass-murdering, meglamaniacal monster, Osama bin Vaporised.

Good to see them all flushed into the open, though.

[Ain't Human Ego the grandest of allies?]

FReegards -- Brian


54 posted on 07/12/2002 4:59:07 AM PDT by Brian Allen
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To: Southern Federalist; steve in DC; Senator_Blutarski; Dog Gone; Miss Marple; Howlin; dirtboy
"However, if anyone with legal knowledge gets this far down, I would like to know how the father could have legal standing to initiate the lawsuit if the mother has "full custody." If she has full custody, doesn't that mean that he has no right to act on the child's behalf in a court of law?"

55 posted on 07/25/2002 9:05:24 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
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