Posted on 02/28/2003 6:49:19 PM PST by webber
MSNBC NEWS SERVICES
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 — Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday announced that the Justice Department will appeal a lower court's ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because of the phrase "under God." The announcement came shortly after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declined to reconsider the ruling.
"THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT will spare no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance to the American flag," Ashcroft said in a statement issued in Washington. "We will defend the ability of Americans to declare their patriotism through the time-honored tradition of voluntarily reciting the pledge."
Ashcroft argued in the statement that for centuries the United States "has referenced God as we have expressed our patriotism and national identity in our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, national anthem, on our coins and in the Gettysburg Address."
In fact, "The Supreme Court of the United States opens each session by saying, 'God save this honorable Court,'" he wrote.
Ashcroft's statement was released within hours of the announcement by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it had rejected the Bush administration's request for a rehearing, which meant the controversial June 2002 ruling by a three-judge panel stands. The court also said it would not accept any other petitions to reconsider.
COURT SAYS IT MUST IGNORE 'OUTCRY'
The court also said it would be "wrongheaded" to allow public outcry to influence court decisions.
"We may not — we must not — allow public sentiment or outcry to guide our decisions," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the 46-page opinion.
"It is particularly important that we understand the nature of our obligations and the strength of our constitutional principles in times of national crisis," Reinhardt wrote. "It is then that our freedoms and our liberties are in the greatest peril."
Ruling on a lawsuit brought by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, a three-judge panel ruled 2-1 last year that Newdow's daughter should not be subjected to the term "under God" being recited during the saying of the pledge in public classrooms.
The court said that phrase in the pledge was an endorsement of God. The U.S. Constitution, the court said, forbade public schools or other governmental entities from endorsing religion.
Congress and President Bush immediately condemned the decision, which would prevent public schoolchildren from reciting the pledge in the nine Western states covered by the nation's largest appeals court. Critics have long assailed the court for what they say is a liberal bent out of step with the rest of the country.
DECISION STAYED - PENDING RESOLUTION
Public outcry over the decision prompted its chief author, Judge Alfred Goodwin, to call for a review by the full appeals court. He also stayed the ruling from going into effect until the case was resolved.
Newdow's lawsuit began as a challenge to a 1954 decision by Congress to add the words "under God" to the pledge. The lawsuit later sidestepped into a parental rights case over a custody dispute between Newdow and his 8-year-old child's mother, Sandra Banning of Elk Grove.
In response to the court's original ruling, Banning asserted that her daughter is not harmed by reciting the pledge and is not opposed to God. Banning, who now has legal custody of the child, urged the court to consider whether Newdow even had legal standing to bring the case on behalf of his daughter. The court said Newdow did have such legal standing.
The case is Newdow v. Congress.
LOL. And judges just HATE that! (well, apparently, these idiots don't care).
Then he should have no problem if the US Supreme Court outlaws abortion, bans quotas and reverses the Miranda ruling.
Yoo mean thuh two num-nuts who are back-stabbin their homeland and successur President in ways that evury eye kin see on Urth???
Make wun wish they wur under God's boot heel!!!
Powur tew thuh peephole!!!
(I lurnt ta spel wif thuh hep of Jimma's wundurful Departmunt uv Edjewkayshun)
Isn't that the "most overturned decisions" court in the US? Liberals with an agenda and to hell with the law.
Vision of the annointed?
Now if the Oakland schools see fit not to have the pledge given, that's something that should be taken up with the school board.
I was in school in the fifties when the pledge was changed. Not using the words "under God" one year and using them the next made me feel neither more American nor closer to God and the whole frickin' thing is a tempest in a teapot, sir.
Assign them to active duty in Iraq! Put them in charge of the human shields.
Oakland has suspended the voluntary recitation of the pledge pending jusicial outcome. Coerced recitation has been illegal since 1943 in the West Va. v Barnett case.
In other words they have suspended political speech, the first amendment to the Constitution.
Trivial matter?
Balogna
You don't want to say the words "under God", then don't. But don't go telling me that the suspension of political speech in Oakland is much ado about nothing.
Do you live in Oakland? If you do, start making a ruckus. If you have friends in Oakland ask them to start making a fuss.
Coerced recitation has been illegal since 1943 in the West Va. v Barnett case.
That's funny, in K-12 in Massachusetts no one ever told us the pledge was voluntary and that goes for the Lord's Prayer that we said every morning too.
The whole matter of "pledging allegiance" to one's country every morning is so trivial as to be meaningless. Do you think that kids will suddenly become Jihadis by not reciting the pledge every morning?
Will saying the pledge stop the commie indoctrination in the schools?
I believe the Ninth Circuit is dead wrong, but the world will go on spinning with or without any damn pledge.
As you go through life remember,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep you eye upon the donut,
And not upon the hole.
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