WITH NEWS this month that the Supreme Court was accepting Newdow v. Elk Grove Unified School District on appeal from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, a case dealing with the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, the dialogue has erupted again between libertarians and the religious right over how the First Amendment should be read. Usually the 9th Circuit has about as much judicial temperament as Al Gore does humor, but in the case of Newdow, they got one right by striking down the "under God" section, and the Court should agree.
Some of the loudest noise on this issue is coming from legislators and interest groups who seem to lack a grasp of history. After the 9th Circuit made its ruling in June, Senator Kit Bond, R-Mo., said, "Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves." Bond and his like must never have learned that it was not until 1942 that the Pledge was officially codified (minus "under God") into the United States Flag Code. Or that the controversial "under God" phrase wasn't added until 1954 by President Eisenhower as a tool of fighting the Cold War and godless communism. Even looking back to the period before its codification, the original pledge wasn't crafted until 1892. Unless some lesser-known Founding Father lived to be 150 years old, not a single Founding Father would have had a vested interest in this issue. The Cold War has ended, so why the need to needlessly assert ourselves as a nation "under God"?
Even if the Founding Fathers were present for the enactment of the pledge and its various forms, many of them, notably the Virginians, would have backed the 9th Circuit's move. While the Founders had differing religious and political views, they agreed in the Jeffersonian and Madisonian notions as expressed in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that the state has no right to interfere with the religious beliefs of its citizens, no matter how scant its followers may be. To the contrary of Bond, the Fathers would be somersaulting in their graves if they knew of the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge.
More infuriated by the 9th Circuit are knee-jerk religious groups and individuals who jump up in anger any time anyone has the audacity to assert that not all people believe (or should believe) in the same God or any God at all. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, never one to be without an opinion on all things religious, supports the spiritual language because he thinks it provides comfort in these uncertain times of international terrorism and decries the "radicals" that want it stricken. I would like to see if Falwell would react in a similar way if he lived in a country that existed "under Buddha" and his children listened to their peers pledge this.
Many might make the claim that removing "under God" from the pledge would start a torrent of suits to remove any reference to God by government, most obviously from currency. But the two instances vary drastically in the intent of their language and their levels of injury. When a cash transaction occurs (which is becoming increasingly less the case as debit and credit cards proliferate), the buyer and seller do not care what the bills or coins say, so long as they carry worth. There is little or no purpose in having "In God We Trust" on our money, because money is by nature not a document of allegiance or views but a means of exchange.
Such is not the case with the pledge. It is by its nature a statement meant to be read and recited in group as a statement of beliefs. When spiritual language becomes included in such a statement, it crosses the line of being an acknowledgement of our religious traditions in our founding and becomes the establishment of Judeo-Christian monotheism.
In this world where many, especially in the Middle East, sincerely believe the United States to be a crusading nation fighting Islam, pledging a nation "under God" will not win over the hearts and minds of young people abroad, no matter how much we wax poetic about democratic governments.
Perhaps the great irony of the whole case is that while the pledge of allegiance is a profession of liberty and justice, the inclusion of "under God" violates those same ideals. As an expression of patriotism, the pledge would be strengthened if such strong, normative statements of religion were kept out of it.
(Jim Prosser's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at jprosser@0cavalierdaily.com.)
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