By KIM CURTIS - Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO -- An atheist seeking to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and U.S. currency is taking his arguments back to a federal appeals court.
Michael Newdow, a Sacramento doctor and lawyer, sued the Elk Grove Unified School District in 2000 for forcing public school children to recite the pledge, saying it was unconstitutional.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Newdow's favor in 2002, but two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Newdow lacked standing to sue because he didn't have custody of the daughter on whose behalf he brought the case. He immediately filed a second lawsuit on behalf of three unidentified parents and their children.
In 2005, a federal judge in Sacramento found in favor of Newdow, ruling the pledge was unconstitutional because its reference to "one nation under God" violates children's rights to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." The judge said he was following the precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court's ruling in Newdow's first case.
A three-judge panel from that court was to hear arguments in the case on Tuesday. The same panel also was to hear arguments in Newdow's case against the national motto, "In God We Trust."
In 2005, Newdow sued Congress and several federal officials, arguing that making money with the motto on it violated the First Amendment clause requiring the separation of church and state.
Last year, a federal judge in Sacramento disagreed, saying the words did not violate Newdow's atheism. Newdow appealed.
Congress first authorized a reference to God on a two-cent piece in 1864. In 1955, the year after lawmakers added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, Congress passed a law requiring all U.S. currency to carry the motto "In God We Trust."
Newdow is Back to Get God Out
| Local News |
The Religion of Anti-Religion
Michael Newdow is at it again. The religious atheist, not satisfied with the issue he created over American flag salute (insisting that "under God" be removed), now wants "In God We Trust" removed from American currency. Encouraged by the faithful liberals in the American judiciary, Newdow thinks he can now succeed beyond Madalyn Murry O'Hair's attempt to remove the historical imprint on American money.
No doubt, upon exhausting the entertainment value of this enterprise, Newdow will join in the campaign to remove crosses from all city and state seals. We will see him in the forefront of cases like the one in Las Cruses, New Mexico, where Paul F. Weinbaum filed a suit saying that religious symbols on public property are unconstitutional. "The crosses serve no governmental purpose other than to disenfranchise and discredit non-Christian citizens," he said. (Jay A. Sekulow has appealed to New Mexico's governor, Bill Richardson, in support of the city of Las Cruses, "The Crosses." In his appeal, Sekulow references two quotations from Sandra Day O'Conner, which may pleasantly surprise many conservatives.)
Regarding the intense indignation such anti-American blasphemy provokes in God-fearing patriots, it must be noted that any over reaction will only justify the provocateures. Great care must be exercised to honor the Constitution. The phrase "separation of church and state" does not occur in the Constitution at all, but "the free exercise [of religion]" does. The name of God and reference thereunto occur (more than once) in the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution (1st Amendment) simply states that Congress shall not enact laws regarding religion. That the name of God should occur in American society, in public places, in the American flag salute, on American currency, is hardly a concern of law or Congress, in so far as it was not an act of Congress to cause the name of God to thus occur. Furthermore, the Constitution does not mandate that states exempt themselves from such concerns.
The issue is the definition of "religion." Does the name of God on a federal building, or on federally created currency constitute the enforcement of religion, or the prohibition of religion? Does it inflict inhibition or coercion? These are the questions to ask, and not theoretical, abtract protests born of sociopathological frustrations in individuals like Michael Newdow or Madalyn O'Hair.
The God of the Bible can never be erased from American history. As Justice O'Conner observed:
"It is unsurprising that a nation founded by religious refugees and dedicated to religious freedom should find references to divinity in its symbols, songs, mottoes and oaths. Eradicating such references would sever ties to a history that sustains this Nation even today." And "Certain ceremonial references to God and religion in our Nation are the inevitable consequence of the religious history that gave birth to our founding principles of liberty. It would be ironic indeed if this Court were to wield our constitutional commitment to religious freedom so as to sever our ties to the traditions developed to honor it."