Supreme Court Will Hear Pledge of Allegiance Case

Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported in this CNN.com article, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next year (most likely in June) involving whether public schools can lead students in a 'voluntary' recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. At issue in this case is whether the inclusion of the phrase 'under God' in the pledge constitutes an establishment of religion on the part of the state and an infringement on students' religious liberty when it is recited in the public school setting. This case comes to the Supreme Court as an appeal of the June 2002 ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--a decision that led to one of the most active stories in Slashdot history." The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness -- "whether schoolchildren can be allowed to recite the Pledge voluntarily" -- is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic. Most states have laws requiring the pledge to be recited every day as a class activity, and these are the laws in question. In theory students shouldn't be punished for failing to recite along with the rest of the class (due to a previous Supreme Court decision). No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.

Comments

Online Rights

[IM6100]

What does this have to do with online rights?

What does it have to do with anything Nerds are interested in?

It seems more like a topic for a civil libertarian blog.

I'm not saying the government is right or wrong. I'm just asserting this is off topic. Michael, can't you find another website to pound your drums on?

God's Pals

[Viking Coder]

It's always amazing to me how much people think that God needs defending.

Your relationship with God is the only important thing in the universe, and you don't need a government to tell you how to have a good relationship with your deity.

And I don't need the government telling me how to have a good relationship with your deity. And you don't need the government telling you how to have a good relationship with my deity.

Our country is also strong enough to not have to declare that it exists through God's will. We made it, not God. The prophet George Washington didn't see a burning bush that implored him to lead his soldiers across the Delaware.

Our nation, like every human institution, is fallible. The more we bring God into it, the less we respect him, our nation, and ourselves.

God might help you make your personal choices, but you make bad decisions, too. Giving God the credit for your successes, and taking personal blame for your failures is dehumanizing to you and everyone else, and it leads to both a sense of false security (in your bad decisions), and false insecurity (questioning your relationship with God, just because you messed up.)

P.S. - if this comment pissed you off, then contemplate living in a country that forces you to worship a God that you don't believe in. Now, recognize that's exactly what you're asking other people to do in America. It's not YOUR country - it's OUR country. And the only way we can all get along, is to keep separate our personal and political worlds.

You have your personal relationship with your God, I have my personal relationship with my God - and the laws of this land should not give either one of us preferential treatment.

God != America

Re:Pledge almost is the same as prayer in schools

[mshomphe]

This ties directly in to the Texas case (Santa Fe, I think). You may not have to recite the pledge (although in this case, I believe pledging was compulsory; please correct me if I'm wrong), but school property is being used to endorse a theistic viewpoint. Moreover, the message broadcast is that this is the position of the authorities.

What everyone must keep in mind is the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

I as an individual can profess my religious (non-)affiliations as much as I want. However, agents of the state cannot endorse or reject a religion while acting as said agents. Using school property to communicate a message with a distinctly theistic slant ("one nation, under God") is unconstitutional (again, see the Santa Fe v. Doe ruling). The state can't say one way or another about god (much in the way that Science should remain agnostic barring distinct evidence one way or another) unless it's in discussing religion in a neutral context. This doesn't mean that teachers can't pray, be religious, nor students; rather, you can't use public property or act on behalf of the government in a coercive way when doing it.