Posted on 11/13/2002 4:26:45 PM PST by Eric Esot
WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed into law on Wednesday a bill reaffirming -- with a slap at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- references to God in the Pledge of Allegiance and national motto.
Bush signed the legislation without comment. It reinforces support for the words "under God" in the pledge, and for "In God we trust" as the national motto.
The measure was approved unanimously in the Senate and drew just five no votes in the House. Congress rushed to act after the federal appeals court in California ruled in June that the phrase "under God," inserted into the pledge by Congress in 1954, amounted to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
The legislation faulted the court for its "erroneous rationale" and "absurd result."
The new law also modifies the manner in which the Pledge of Allegiance is to be delivered by stating that, when not in uniform, men should remove any nonreligious headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Previously, the standard dictated that "any headdress" be removed.
Those House members voting against the bill, all Democrats, were Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Michael Honda and Pete Stark of California, Jim McDermott of Washington and Bobby Scott of Virginia.
At the time, Scott called the legislation "totally gratuitous" even though he shared the majority's objections to the court's ruling.
Four House Democrats -- Gary Ackerman and Nydia Velazquez of New York, Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Mel Watt of North Carolina -- voted present.
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The bill is S. 2690.
The strange thing is Jim McDermott of Washington got reelected with 75% of the vote in his district.~sigh
Indeed.
At the rate of over 2,000 illegal aliens infiltrating the United States per day; not per week, nor per month.
Per day.
The difference he is making is that Iraq will have "weapons of mass destruction" which justify our invading Iraq premptively, while North Korea gets a pass on its absolutely positively known weapons of mass destruction ... because North Korea has agreed to consider various economic reforms beneficial to "western technology."
Not to mention the construction of the new Department of Federal Law Enforcement Job Security --- the Brownie Cops with Federal Badges who'll be everywhere in our lives on the prompting of people with nervous cell-phone fingers.
Prepare your front lawn for the new diamond emblem on a short staff, reading:
This Home [land] Protected by the Property Owners Permitting Absolute Government over Their Land by Authority of the New Paradigm That If You Have Nothing to Hide, You Cannot Possibly Object!
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