"One Nation Under God" does not establish a National Religion
| Mr.
Newdow is
offended that
his daughter, has to hear the word "God" in the pledge each day;
therefore he wants to
prevent her, and all the children in America from being FREE
to
say the word GOD at school. The mother
Sandra Banning
and daughter, who are both Christians, have left him, but he wants to
have control over his daughter, even though the daughter stays with the
mother most of the time. Even if the Supreme Court
rules
against the Pledge the daughter said, "I will still say 'one nation
under God' under my breath, and no one will know that I'm breaking the
law." Newdow argues "One Nation Under God" violates the "Separation of Church and State" principle. There is not such clause, "Separation of Church and State", in the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights. There is an establishment clause and a free exercise clause in the First Amendment. | The phase "One Nation Under God" does not establish a National Religion, but only acknowledges a long tradition of the majority of Americans from many different faiths, believing in God. In fact our national motto is "In God We Trust" which dates back to the coins of the Civil War era, and the "Star Spangled Banner" written by Francis Scott Key in 1814. If Mr. Newdow is offended by the word God in the pledge, then he should be offended by the national motto, and if he is offended by our motto, then he should be offended by our National Anthem, and then he must be offend by America itself. Remember John Witherspoon signer of the Declaration of Independence said, "If you oppose God then you oppose America." It should be noted that Mr. Newdow continues to bring lawsuites against God and seeks to ban the National Motto from our buildings and money. The Supreme Court heard the oral arguments for the Pledge Case on March 24, 2004. Mr. Newdow represented himself in the court. A number of the Justices asked pointed questions, and appeared to be skeptical of Mr. Newdow's claim that the pledge becomes a prayer by adding the words, "One Nation Under God."
The U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling on Pledge case on June 14th, 2004. While the ruling keeps the pledge as is with the words "One Nation Under God" in it (for now), this issue is not really resolved. The Court really side stepped the issue of Constitutionality. The justices said that Mr. Newdow did not have legal custody over his daughter so the court would not rule on this case. Justices Rehnquist, Thomas, and O'Connor wrote in their decision that they felt the words "Under God" did not violate the Constitution. The ACLU and the Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have stated that they will bring other cases to court, working through the liberal California Ninth Circuit Court. This issue will rise again so it is very important that the CRA bill is passed in Congress to stop these legal attacks on the Constitution. If you want to keep the Pledge with "Under God", then we urge you to contact your Congressmen to support the CRA bill. You can print out a Petition, fill it out, sign it and mail to your Congressmen. |
You can Print out your own
Bumper
Sticker, by right clicking on image above, saving the file and later
printing it on a color printer, you can get your bumper sticker
laminated at Kinko's.
I'm still very skeptical of the Court's continuous ruling on religious practices in this country as their actions violate the First Amendment. To learn more about the Courts, activist Judges click here.,
The July 8, 2002 issue of Newsweek had a cover story on the Pledge Issue if you want to do further reading on the subject
Last Update Jan. 2009
posted by Kerminator at 02:47
1 Comments:
The government's inscription of the phrase "In God we trust" on coins and currency, as well as its addition of the words "under God" to the pledge of allegiance in 1954 and adoption of the phrase "In God we trust" as a national motto in 1956, were mistakes, which should be corrected. Under our Constitution, the government has no business proclaiming that "we trust" "In God." Some of us do, and some of us don't; each of us enjoys the freedom to make that choice; the government does not and should not purport to speak for us in this regard. Nor does the government have any business calling on its citizens to voice affirmation of a god in any circumstances, let alone in the very pledge the government prescribes for affirming allegiance to the country. The unnecessary insertion of an affirmation of a god in the pledge puts atheists and other nonbelievers in a Catch 22: Either recite the pledge with rank hypocrisy or accept exclusion from one of the basic rituals of citizenship enjoyed by all other citizens. The government has no business forcing citizens to this choice on religious grounds, and it certainly has no business assembling citizens' children in public schools and prescribing their recitation of the pledge--affirmation of a god and all--as a daily routine.
But that's just me talking. The courts, on the other hand, have sometimes found ways to excuse such things, for instance with the explanation that they are more about acknowledging tradition than promoting religion per se. Draining the government's nominally religious statements or actions of religious meaning (or at least purporting to do so) and discounting them as non-religious ritual--sometimes dubbed "ceremonial deism"--is one way the courts have sometimes found them not to conflict with the First Amendment. Ordinary folks, though, commonly see things quite differently; when most read "[i]n God we trust," they think the Government is actually declaring that "we" as a people actually "trust" the actual "God" they believe in. If they truly understood it as merely a ritualistic phrase devoid of religious meaning, they would hardly get as exercised as they do about proposals to drop it. As you can imagine, those more interested in championing their religion than the constitutional principle of separation of church and state sometimes seek to exploit and expand such "exceptions" even if it requires they fake interest only in tradition.
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