[size=big]Top Court Rejects Atheist's Challenge to Pledge[/size]
Mon Jun 14, 2004 05:04 PM ET
By James Vicini
[size=big]W[/size]ASHINGTON (Reuters) - An atheist's attempt to remove the words "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance failed on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court avoided the constitutional question and ruled he could not bring the challenge on behalf of his daughter.
The ruling in one of the most important cases of the term was based on the technicality that Californian Michael Newdow could not bring the case because he did not have legal control over the now 10-year-old girl. It left open the possibility of future challenges.
The 8-0 decision by the justices overturned a controversial ruling by a U.S. appeals court in California that reciting the phrase amounted to a violation of church-state separation.
The ruling came on Flag Day and on the 50th anniversary of the addition of the words "under God" to the pledge. The U.S. Congress adopted the June 14, 1954, law in an effort to distinguish America's religious values and heritage from those of communism, which is atheistic.
Three court members -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas -- said they would uphold the words "under God" as constitutional.
"Reciting the pledge, or listening to others recite it, is a patriotic exercise, not a religious one; participants promise fidelity to our flag and our nation, not to any particular God, faith or church," Rehnquist said.
O'Connor agreed. "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," she said.
Both supporters and opponents expressed disappointment the Supreme Court avoided the key constitutional issue. They predicted it would arise again and have to be decided.
A disappointed Newdow, an emergency room doctor who has a law degree and acted as his own attorney, said he hoped the ruling at least would spark interest in what he called grossly unfair U.S. child custody laws.
NEWDOW FIGHTING SYSTEM
"I'm fighting this entire system. In a couple months I will be in the family courts arguing that this entire system is unconstitutional," he said by telephone from his home near Sacramento, California
The girl's mother, Sandra Banning, a born-again Christian, said she had exclusive legal custody of the girl under a state court order. She supported her daughter saying the pledge.
The court's majority opinion said Newdow lacked the right to bring the challenge because Banning has sole legal custody and is authorized to exercise legal control over her daughter.
"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," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
Millions of American students every day "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
California requires the pledge to be recited every day at public elementary schools, although no child has to join in.
"The justices ducked this constitutional issue today, but it is likely to come back in the future," said the Rev. Barry Lynn of the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Kevin Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which supported the reference to God in the pledge, said, "You win some, you lose some and some get rained out."
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