Pledge of Allegiance 'Unconstitutional,' Court Claims

The Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and may not be recited in government schools, the left-wing federal appeals court in San Francisco claimed Wednesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1954 act of Congress that inserted the phrase "under God" after the phrase "one nation" in the pledge.

The ruling, if allowed to stand, means schoolchildren may no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court.

The Bush administration had argued that the religious content of "one nation under God" is minimal. But the court said that an atheist, non-Jew or non-Christian could see it as an endorsement of monotheism.

Vishnu? Zeus?

"A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus,' a nation 'under Vishnu,' a nation 'under Zeus,' or a nation 'under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion," Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote for the three-judge panel.

As Fox News Channel reported, the court is the most far-left in the nation. Its recent rulings include inventing a "right" for self-described Rastafarians to smoke marijuana on federal property.

Fox News analyst Sean Hannity lamented Wednesday afternoon that such bizarre rulings are part of Bill Clinton's legacy and have resulted because the likes of Sens. Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton have obstructed consideration of President Bush's judicial nominees.

In the nation's first ruling of its kind, the appeals court said that when President Eisenhower signed the 1954 legislation, he wrote that "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."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that pupil may not be compelled to say the pledge. But the appeals panel claimed that any classroom pledges, even if students refuse to participate, are unconstitutional, an "unacceptable choice between participating and protesting."

"Although students cannot be forced to participate in recitation of the pledge, the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge," the San Francisco judges fretted.

Will He Sue to Rename 'Sacramento' and 'San Francisco'?

Sacramento atheist Michael A. Newdow, who said his second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge at the Elk Grove Unified School District, brought the case.

"I'm an American citizen. I don't like my rights infringed upon by my government," he said. He called the pledge a "religious idea that certain people don't agree with."

As for the majority of people who don't agree with him, the attitude seems to be, "Tough luck."