Fifty years to the day after the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected — by an 8–0 vote — a challenge to remove them — but only on technical grounds.
On June 14, the high court reversed a 2002 federal court decision that a California public school district’s policy of having teachers lead in reciting the pledge was an unconstitutional government establishment of religion. The earlier decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals came after Michael Newdow — an atheist whose daughter was at the time an elementary-school student in the Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento — filed suit.
But five members of the Supreme Court determined that Newdow lacked proper legal standing to file the suit, since he does not have legal custody of his daughter. The justices thus avoided making a sweeping constitutional ruling on church-state issues in what has proven to be one of the most controversial legal cases in recent memory.
In the lower court’s decision, a three-judge panel had ruled, 2–1, that the pledge’s assertion that the United States is “one nation, under God” violated the First Amendment’s ban on government support for religion.
But shortly after that ruling, the girl’s mother, Sandra Banning, attempted to intervene in the case. Banning and Newdow were never married and were engaged in a long-running legal dispute over custody of the child, who has not been named in court papers. Banning argued that previous California court decisions gave her sole legal authority over the girl. She noted both she and her daughter are Christians who have no objection to reciting the pledge or hearing it recited.
In his brief, Newdow contended that, despite the custody agreement, the father retains “an unrestricted right to inculcate in his daughter — free from governmental influence — the atheistic beliefs he finds persuasive.”
But, in the June 14 ruling, the Supreme Court said, “The difficulty with that argument is that Newdow’s rights, as in many cases touching upon family relations, cannot be viewed in isolation.”
The court’s opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, continued, “This case concerns not merely Newdow’s interest in inculcating his child with his views on religion, but also the rights of the child’s mother as a parent generally and under the [California court] orders specifically.”
The Supreme Court also said, given the circumstances, it would be wise of them to refrain from ruling on the larger church-state issue. “When hard questions of domestic relations are sure to affect the outcome, the prudent course is for the federal court to stay its hand rather than reach out to resolve a weighty question of federal constitutional law,” Stevens wrote.
However, in recognition of the controversy the case inspired, three justices wrote separate concurring opinions agreeing with the decision but disagreeing with their colleagues’ reasoning. Justices William Rehnquist, Sandra Day O’Connor and Clarence Thomas all asserted that Newdow should have had proper legal standing to bring his case, but the case should have been rejected on constitutional grounds.
For the full text of the story, including the justice’s comments, visit www.thealabamabaptist.org. (ABP)
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