Criticism of the Pledge of Allegiance

The criticism of the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States exists on several grounds. Its use in public schools has been the most controversial, as critics contend that a government-sanctioned endorsement of religion violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Critics feel that the pledge is incompatible with democracy and freedom, and suggest that pledges of allegiance are features of totalitarian states.^[1]

Objections on the grounds of religion

Even before the addition of the phrase "under God" in 1954, legal challenges were frequently founded on the basis of freedom of religion.

Central to early challenges were Jehovah's Witnesses, a group whose beliefs preclude swearing loyalty to any power lesser than God. In the 1940 Supreme Court case Minersville School District vs. Gobitis, an 8-1 majority in the Court held that a school district's interest in promoting national unity permitted it to require Witness students to recite the Pledge along with their class mates. Gobitis was an unpopular decision in the press, and it led to a rash of mob violence and intimidation against Jehovah's Witnesses;^[2] three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette, the Court reversed itself, voting 6-3 to forbid a school from requiring the Pledge.

As a result, since 1943 public schools have been disallowed from punishing students for not reciting the Pledge. Nonetheless, it remains taught to and expected of school children in many schools, as the Court leaves many details in such matters up to respective state governments.

More specific objections have been raised since the addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge. The year of its addition, 1954, was also near the beginning of the Cold War anti-communist movement in the United States. Some anti-communist ideology in the U.S. identified the Soviet states with atheism.

To many observers, the addition of "under God" to the Pledge at this time suggests an identification of the U.S. as an officially religious nation. Many critics contend this is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion on the part of a government.

Other objections

• Anarchists, libertarians, socialists, and communists generally oppose on principle pledges led by government employees in public schools, as a conflict in interest by the government and as exploitation of children.

• Filmmaker Michael Moore's book Mike's Election Guide 2008 suggests that whoever wins the 2008 Election updates the pledge to a modern version. He suggests:

I pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America, and to the republic, for which we stand, one nation, part of one world, with liberty and justice for all.

2003 District ruling

Teachers or any other staff cannot be forced to participate in the pledge, either: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a teacher, a student, a citizen, an administrator, or anyone else, it is beyond the power of the authority of government to compel the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance,”—U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock ^[3]

2005 District ruling

In early 2005, Dr. Michael Newdow brought a new lawsuit on behalf of himself and others. On September 14, 2005, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that it violated the Establishment Clause for public schools to lead their students in the Pledge of Allegiance to comply with California's requiring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The judge said he was bound by 2002 precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision even though it had been vacated by the Supreme Court. Judge Karlton held that the words "one nation under God" violate the right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

On November 30, 2005, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an organization claiming to defend religious rights for people of all faiths, appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit and filed a brief that declared, "[intervenors] object to the ruling that the pledge violates any part of the Establishment Clause." Derek Gaubatz, Director of Litigation for the Becket Fund, said his group would appeal the decision "if necessary to the Supreme Court to get that ruling reversed to secure the constitutionality of the pledge once and for all."

2006 District ruling

In the 2006 Florida case Frazier v. Alexandre, No. 05-81142 (S.D. Fla. May 31, 2006) "A federal district court in Florida has ruled that a 1942 state law requiring students to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, even though the law allows students to opt out, because they can only do so with written parental permission and are still required to stand during the recitation. Cameron Frazier, a student at Boynton Beach High School, was removed from a class after he refused to follow his teacher's instructions to recite the Pledge or stand during recitation."^[4]

"Under God" ruling

The words "under God" were added to the Pledge on 14 June 1954 when then U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a bill into law. At the time, Eisenhower stated that "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty."^[5]

The matter of the Pledge's constitutionality simmered for decades below the public eye. In 1992, the Chicago-based Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided the first challenge to the constitutionality of the words "under God," ruling in Sherman v. Community Consolidated School District 21 that the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge did not violate the Establishment Clause. On June 26, 2002, in a case (Newdow v. United States Congress) brought by an atheist father objecting to the Pledge being taught in his daughter's school, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled the addition of under God an unconstitutional endorsement of monotheism.

Shortly after the ruling's release, Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, author of the opinion in the 2–1 ruling, signed an order staying its enforcement until the full Ninth Circuit court could decide whether to hear an appeal.

The day after the ruling, the Senate voted in favor of the Pledge as it stood .^[6] The House followed suit, accepting a similar resolution.^[7] The Senate vote was 99–0 (Senator Jesse Helms could not attend, but had been expected to vote "yes"); the House 416–3 with 11 abstaining. President George W. Bush and many other politicians spoke out in favor of the existing Pledge.

The stay on the ruling was lifted on February 28, 2003 when the full Ninth Circuit court of appeals decided not to take the case, letting the ruling stand. A second stay was granted, however, to give the school district time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. If it had held, the court's ruling would have affected more than 9.6 million students in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Guam.

In the months following the court's decision, Attorney Generals from all 50 states filed papers asking the Supreme Court of the United States to review the decision, 49 of which joined a legal brief sponsored by Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson and Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden. California filed a separate brief, also urging the Supreme Court to hear the case.

On January 12, 2004, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal on March 24 of the same year. Justice Antonin Scalia recused himself from the case after he had criticized the Ninth Circuit judgment in the Newdow case.^[8][9][10] On June 14, 2004, the Supreme Court rejected Newdow's claim by an 8–0 vote, stating that as a non-custodial parent, he did not have standing to act as his daughter's legal representative. The Court did not reach the constitutionality of the pledge, but several of the Justices' opinions indicated that they would uphold the constitutionality of the Pledge (Rehnquist's concurring opinion in 542 U.S. 1, 31).^{[citation needed]}

In August 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held 3–0 in Myers v. Loudoun County Public Schools that teacher-led recitations of the Pledge did not violate the Establishment Clause. The Plaintiff in that case, Edward Myers, decided not to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.

General patterns in issues of church and state

The points-of-view, compromises, and personal interests in this matter are often viewed as examples of a wider debate over the role of religion in U.S. government.

Several dissenting Supreme Court Justices concluded that U.S. judges exceed their authority in decisions on issues of religion. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist agreed, that "the Court's position is the repressive one" when the Supreme Court approved of the lower courts declaring a law unconstitutional because it mandated that teaching of "evolution science" be balanced by teaching of "creation science." (Edwards v. Aguillard,^[11]). Justice Scalia has also said that courts have gone too far to keep religion out of public schools and other forums, and that the Pledge of Allegiance question would be better decided by lawmakers than judges.

The Supreme Court has banned some expressions of "God" from public schools. For example, in 1962 the Supreme Court banned the teacher-led recitation of the invocation, "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country."^[12] This objectionable "Almighty God" recitation was voluntary, of the same nature as the Pledge of Allegiance.

In the same 1962 case, the Court admitted that the "God save this honorable court" invocation uttered at the beginning of each Court session was a "prayer." However, the Court also ruled that "A religion is not established in the usual sense merely by letting those who choose to do so say the prayer that the public school teacher leads." Rather, the Court found fault with the teacher-led prayer because the State of New York had financed a religious exercise in requiring the teacher-led recitation of the prayer. Nevertheless, neither the parents nor the Court made the same assertion regarding the Pledge of Allegiance.^[13]

Definition of "religious exercise"

The dissenting justice in the 2002 ruling stated that the ruling conflicted with the Supreme Court's explicit stance that the phrase "under God" is merely a ceremonial reference to history and not an affirmation of religious faith.^[14] Opponents contend that this contradicts the 1954 House Report of the legislators who inserted the "under God" phrase into the Pledge, which stated that the words "under God" served to "acknowledge the dependence of our people and our Government upon the moral directions of the Creator." 154 U.S.C.A.A.N 2339, 2340.

The plaintiff, Michael Newdow, an atheist, was offended by the phrase "In God We Trust" on the coins of American currency, believing that the phrase was a state-sponsored statement of religious faith - illegal under the separation of church and state.^[15] He argued that he had a right to raise his daughter "without God being imposed into her life by her schoolteachers."^[16]

Some of the judges in the 2002 ruling agreed that Newdow had a right to direct the religious education of his daughter.^[17] Newdow explained his view of 'freedom of religious exercise' by asking whether Christians would be glad if the atheists were in the majority and if the atheists inserted into the pledge of allegiance the phrase "one nation under NO God."^[16] In an interview with Connie Chung, Newdow stated, "The Constitution says the congress will make no laws respecting an establishment of religion which means that the Supreme Court says, and as you have said, nobody should be made to feel like an outsider. And I would only ask everyone of those people to ask themselves, if they had to say every morning when they pledged allegiance to the flag, that we were one nation under Sun Myung Moon, or one nation under David Koresh, or one nation under Jesus, or one nation under Mohammad, how would they feel?"

Thus Newdow claimed that the reference to God is meaningful, and hence the court should recognize, and correct, the resulting religious bias. Meanwhile, the "under God" clause is often defended as "ceremonial deism," acceptable because it is religiously meaningless.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

1. ^ James Perry. "What I Expect My Child To Learn From Not Saying the Pledge of Allegiance". http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/perry1.html. Retrieved 2008-09-02 ^{[unreliable source?]}
2. ^ Ellis, Richard J., To the Flag: The unlikely history of the Pledge of Allegiance, pp. 105-9, University Press of Kansas, 2005
3. ^ David L. Hudson Jr.. Pledge of Alliegence. First Amendment Center. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/rel_liberty/publicschools/topic.aspx?topic=pledge_of_allegiance2. Retrieved 2008-03-31 
4. ^ "Frazier v. Alexandre, No. 05-81142 (S.D. Fla. May 31, 2006)". National School Boards Association. Archived from the original on 2007-03-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20070312095205/http://www.nsba.org/site/doc_cosa.asp?TRACKID=&VID=50&CID=487&DID=38719). Retrieved 2008-03-31. 
5. ^ Lawmakers blast Pledge ruling. CNN. June 27, 2002. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/pledge.allegiance/index.html. Retrieved 2008-03-31 
6. ^ Senate debate records
7. ^ http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c107:H.+Res.+459:^{[broken citation]}
8. ^ Gould, Pamela (2003-01-13). "Religious freedom praised". The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company. http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/911/2003/012003/01132003/846367/printer_friendly. Retrieved 2006-06-19. 
9. ^ Mauro, Tony (2003-10-20). "Scalia Recusal Revives Debate Over Judicial Speech, Ethics". Legal Times (ALM Properties, Inc.). http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1066080440869. Retrieved 2006-06-19. 
10. ^ Holland, Gina (2003-01-13). "Supreme Court justice says courts misinterpreting church-state separation" (Summary only - Subscription required for full article). Associated Press. http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=APAB&p_theme=apab&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=constitutional%20scalia&p_field_label-0=Topics&s_dispstring=constitutional%20scalia%20AND%20date(1/13/2003%20to%201/13/2003)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=1/13/2003%20to%201/13/2003)&p_perpage=10&xcal_numdocs=20&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no. Retrieved 2006-06-19.  Note that this is the article used by Newdow to request Scalia's recusal - see^{[citation needed]} where difference in reporting between AP and local paper noted, and Thorne, Mister (2003-11-26). "What She Said He Said". http://www.misterthorne.org/ESSAYS/scalia_recusal.htm. Retrieved 2006-06-19.  for criticism of the reporting.
11. ^ Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987). Text of the court decision at FindLaw
12. ^ Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962). Text of the court decision at FindLaw
13. ^ 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
14. ^ Justice brief at 1
15. ^ Litigant explains why he brought Pledge suit. CNN. June 26, 2002. http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/Newdow.cnna/. Retrieved 2008-09-02 
16. ^ ^{a b} CNN phone interview.
17. ^ Justice brief at 3.

External links

• Lawmakers blast Pledge ruling, CNN, June 27, 2002
• N.I.N.U.G., A refutation of indivisibility and the phrase "under God".
• Recall Election Over Pledge Of Allegiance Reinstated
• The Pledge of Allegiance - Why we're not one nation "under God." by David Greenberg - Slate
• Cloud, Matthew W (March 22 2004). ""One nation, under God": tolerable acknowledgement of religion or unconstitutional cold war propaganda cloaked in American civil religion?". Journal of Church and State 46 (2): 311. ISSN 0021-969X.
• Controversy About the Pledge