SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4, 2007
Pledge Of Allegiance Heads Back To Court
Atheist Seeking Removal Of "God" From Pledge And Currency Returns To Federal Court
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Michael Newdow, an atheist who sued the Elk Grove Unified School District when they required his second- grade daughter to say the Pledge of Allegiance, displays some of the papers concerning the suit, stored at his home in Sacramento, Calif., Wednesday, June 26, 2002. (AP)
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Michael Newdow, a Sacramento doctor and lawyer, sued the Elk Grove Unified School District in 2000 for forcing public school children to recite the pledge, saying it was unconstitutional.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Newdow's favor in 2002, but two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Newdow lacked standing to sue because he didn't have custody of the daughter on whose behalf he brought the case. He immediately filed a second lawsuit on behalf of three unidentified parents and their children.
In 2005, a federal judge in Sacramento found in favor of Newdow, ruling the pledge was unconstitutional because its reference to "one nation under God" violates children's rights to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God." The judge said he was following the precedent set by the 9th Circuit Court's ruling in Newdow's first case.
A three-judge panel from that court was to hear arguments in the case on Tuesday. The same panel also was to hear arguments in Newdow's case against the national motto, "In God We Trust."
In 2005, Newdow sued Congress and several federal officials, arguing that making money with the motto on it violated the First Amendment clause requiring the separation of church and state.
Last year, a federal judge in Sacramento disagreed, saying the words did not violate Newdow's atheism. Newdow appealed.
Congress first authorized a reference to God on a two-cent piece in 1864. In 1955, the year after lawmakers added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, Congress passed a law requiring all U.S. currency to carry the motto "In God We Trust."
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See all 194 CommentsThis seems like more of a simple bald-faced lie or denial then it does a constitutional rendering. How can a reference to a God that we Trust not be establishing a preferential established belief in God (note even the capital ''G'')to an athiest -- please read the first amendment?
Be touched by his noodly appendage.
Ramen!
Adolph Hitler - Feb. 1, 1933 radio address
For photos of historical Christian Nazi artifacts:
http://www.nobeliefs.com/mementoes.htm
Those are the words (if I remeber correctly) Bellamy wrote. He wanted them to be recited in every country on earth that imitated America''s form of representative government.
Too bad that his expression of faith in republicanism got tangled up in the Congressional politics of the 20''s (isolationism) and the 50''s (red-baiting).
For what Thomas Jefferson was saying, separation of church and state was not an abstract right but a necessary reform of the religious "tyranny" of one Christian sect over many other Christians - and of the interference of the state in affairs of religion.
And, yes, he did believe!!!
The term does NOT promote any one religion, but is a concept accepted by the super-majority (90%) of Americans. This claim has absolutely no merit because he''s fostering HIS beliefs on the majority. There''s more logic to believing some intelligent force created this universe, than to believe it all sprung from nothing.
Posted by rushman71
What the he11 does THAT mean??? Atheists only are allotted an INCH according to WHOM?? The only person in this chat displaying lack of respect is YOU. Athiests want the right to assemble, and learn in schools, and go to work without religion. YOU seek to termintate American citizenship based on that desire. You want anyone who doesn''t see things your way OUT of the country. I think you have made a very clear point for why zealots like you are so dangerous to the country. You don''t want the right to be free to worship - or not - you want everyone to worship the way YOU want to worship, everywhere.
-Posted by gunownerdan at 02:14 PM : Dec 04, 2007
This is a democracy. Majority rules. America is a Christian nation. Get over it. Or move to Europe, where the secularists have taken over.
Posted by rushman71
"DocOftheBay: Try reading what I said again."
Don''t you worry rush, I know exactly what you are about, you have made it abundantly clear.
"I have friends of all kinds here in the US--Islamic, Atheist, you name it."
I really doubt that.
"But what I will not accept is when people of another faith--or no faith--try to go out of their way to abolish my rights as a US citizen to believe in God..."
NOT what he''s trying to do, and so perhaps you should re-read this article.
"...and to be able to express my opinion of God. That is what this Newdow is trying to do."
Incorrect, VERY incorrect, again. This is about: "forcing public school children to recite the pledge, saying it was unconstitutional [as it contains "a coercive requirement to affirm God".]
you really are all about yourself, as I mentioned, you have a very narrow and self-serving perspective. And your lathered rant against athiests is a testament to your irrational position.
Posted by jh6379
Likewise. You are ignorant of the facts and when they are presented to you you are in denial or someelse is a wack job. There is no criteria forcing anyone to recite the pledge. Check it out dolt. The Founders were not atheists, nor were they progressives nor were the Darwinists. The Preamble to the Constitution reads that Man is Endowed by His Creator. The point of that phrase being that man gets his laws from the almighty. Not from man who distorts the laws to his own form of righteousness. If you are ignorant of these facts, at least explore them and find out what pilars the principals our our nation stand on. If you are ignorant dont'' accuse others of not knowing the Constitution. There is not separation of church and state. The ACLU made it up. It''s a figment of their imagination and dolts like you perpetuate it.
It''s fun for the whole family!
''Patriots'' like that scare me more than terrorists !!!
Jesus said in the bible more than once that a rich man has as much of a chance of getting into heaven as a camel does of traveling through the eye of a needle.
rush, you obviously have no real love for the United States of America if you think that any of it''''s citizen fighting for the right to KEEP CHURCH AND STATE seperate means they should LEAVE the country. You are obviously of one narrow view which has nothing to do with freedom, or the American ideals.
Posted by DocOftheBay at 01:34 PM : Dec 04, 2007
Where, exactly, in the constitution does it say "seperation of church and state"???
Posted by gunownerdan at 02:52 PM : Dec 04, 2007
I think you got it wrong...the Chinese have lent us all of their money ;P
Posted by ozilot at 02:56 PM : Dec 04, 2007
And we have to pay them back with our money so he got it right and soon we will have to pay back more for the same amount because the idiot decider (Not Mine or WE THE PEOPLE) keeps borrowing it. As a Finance guy I know that if you keep borrowing and then can''t pay it back the collection agents will come for you. The neo cons can''t think that far in the future anything past beating there chest and staying the course is too far off for them.
Posted by antixlayer
I really think you should shut up, sit down and pay attention.
Part I
John Andrew Murray, the author, explains:
Fifty years ago, the phrase "In God We Trust" first appeared on our nation''s one-dollar bill. But long before the motto was signed into law by President Eisenhower, it was considered for U.S. coins during the divisive years of the Civil War.
On Nov. 13, 1861, in the first months of the war, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase received the following letter from a Rev. M.R. Watkinson: "Dear Sir, One fact touching our currency has hitherto been seriously overlooked. I mean the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins. You are probably a Christian. What if our Republic were now shattered beyond reconstruction? Would not the antiquaries of succeeding centuries rightly reason from our past that we were a heathen nation?"
The clergyman surmised correctly. Chase was indeed a Christian.
As a young man at Dartmouth College, Chase had described himself as skeptical of the Christian faith. He had written to a friend, Tom Sparhawk, in 1826: "A [religious] revival has commenced here [at Dartmouth]. I was not taught to believe much in the efficacy of such things but I do not know enough concerning their effects to oppose them." Not only did Chase tolerate Dartmouth''s revival of 1826, but he emerged as one of 12 new followers of Christ. As Chase wrote to another acquaintance in April of that year, "It has pleased God in his infinite mercy to bring me . . . to the foot of the cross and to find acceptance through the blood of His dear Son."
While the thought of a revival at an Ivy League school seems odd today, they were relatively commonplace back then. Like his contemporaries, Dartmouth President Bennet Tyler believed in the importance of integrating faith, virtue and knowledge: "As the obligations of morality are founded in religion, so also the only efficacious motives to a virtuous life are derived from the same source. The man who discards all religious belief . . . knows no law but his own inclination, and has no end in view but present gratification." As Chase would write to Sparhawk one year later: "Remember too that the religion of the Bible is the religion I would recommend . . . and I would wish you to make that book your counselor and your guide never forgetting to implore the teachings of the Holy Spirit of Truth."
Chase''s relationship and trust in God would put him on a path that would affect both him and the country in the years to come. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Chase became a lawyer. Believing slavery to be a sin, he defended many escaped slaves in his early years of practice in Cincinnati. He tried to argue, for instance, against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 on the grounds that Ohio was admitted to the Union as a free state and not allowed to have slaves based on the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Chase eventually gained the nickname "attorney general for runaway Negroes." He embraced the title (which was intended to be an insult) and went on to fight the institution of slavery while serving first as a U.S. senator and then as the governor of Ohio.
When then-Secretary Chase was chosen by President Lincoln to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1864, he appointed the first black lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court. And in an 1865 letter to black Americans in New Orleans, Chase encouraged "the constant practice of Christian virtues" to combat "unjust hostility" and "prejudice."
Posted by gunownerdan
Under the first amendment, it belongs anywhere we chose to put it.
First, I don''t think that is what is meant. A majority of citizens of this country do believe in a higher power, whether called God, Jehovah, Allah or corky cumquat.
Secondly, I have never found in the Constitution any place that says "seperation of church and state". Only phrase is that congress shall make no law establishing a religion, or forbidding the free exercise thereof.
Third, since this alleged seperation only affects government, how do you propose bweing able to go to work without religion? If the owner of the company is religious and has reference to it, does that mean that next you will try to get it taken out of all private business, maybe even private homes, since an athiest might decide to visit?
-- Adolf Hitler, 1933 Berlin Speech
Should we add lyrics to ''''Love Me Tender'''' too?
Posted by jh6379
What part of Under God that is in the Pledge now don''t you understand?
-- Adolf Hitler, 1933 Berlin Speech
Posted by gunownerdan
And now you see how misusing the name of God worked for Germany.
-- Adolf Hitler October, 1933
"I swear by God this Holy Oath, that I will render to Adolf Hitler, Fuehrer of the German Reich and people, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, unconditional obedience, and that I am ready, as a brave soldier, to risk my life at any time for this Oath."
-- German Military Oath of Allegience to Adolf Hitler, 1934
Most Nazis were Christians and they used God to justify their murderous ways.
Posted by sevenveils
Newdow can''t, like the ACLU can''t. They are confirmed nilhists hell bent on turning our nation into a Godless wonder. It''s been on their Agenda for over 30 years now and that''s why they don''t want creationism taught in the schools, the want Darwin''s theories that they were born apes and grew in men theories to dispute anything religious so our little heathens can spew their atheistic athems. The children of today are the dolts of tomorrow. Luckily we won''t live to see the dung heap that will make of this country.
Posted by gunownerdan
Your justifications are stupid, ignorant like the pukefessors who taught you this unbelieveable c/rap. You bought it lock, stock and barrel. Hitler threatened the Church. One wrong move and he told Rome he would destroy it. Get a life dumb bell. Or at least get an education.
Posted by jh6379
May you should go down to Venezuela and sing it to Chavez. Quite frankly it would cause your demise rather quickly.
Photographs do not lie.
Hitler may have turned against the church later on but at first he used the church to gain his power.
Hitler and the Church -
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
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