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 CommentsPosted by Klingon69 at 12:35 PM : Dec 05, 2007
Atheism is probably not a religion. There is no concept of heaven and hell, no afterlife, no pretty virgin-looking angels, no sin, no need for salvation. No need to build churches or to ask for donations so religious leaders like Robertson can live in style.
But whether atheism is a religion or not is beside the point. What is at issue is the principle of separation of church and state. Removing references to God from the pledge and U.S. currency does not favor atheism. If pledge and our currency were silent on the question of God, would a reasonable person assume that there is a message being waved in your face. And if so, what might the message be? That there is no God in the universe? Isn''t that a little too specific, a little to sweeping perhaps? Why not "there is no tooth fairy?" And why not simply "there is no message."
~~~~~
And long before the need arise for me to kill a Muslim in defense of my Librety, I will have to kill a Christian.
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive
Fancy Nancy, Smug, Stupid and Morally Inferior.
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 10:50 AM : Dec 05, 2007
Yeah, it is difficult to fight a running battle with the US military and various government agencies. Oh, but wasn''''t that a violation of the POSSE COMOTATUS ACT?
Posted by Klingon69
Reno, like her boss the Clintoid did and still do not understand the laws of the land. Like the secular progressives, they like to think the Constitution and statutes are to be interpreted as they see fit, not as they were intended. Gun Control and the Second Amendment have nothing to do with Waco.
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 10:50 AM : Dec 05, 2007
Yeah, it is difficult to fight a running battle with the US military and various government agencies. Oh, but wasn''t that a violation of the POSSE COMOTATUS ACT?
Posted by jon2012 at 04:35 PM : Dec 04, 2007
Where exactly in the constitution does it say "seperation of church and state"?
It says that congress can''''t make a law that establishes a religion, or forbid the free exercise thereof.
Posted by Klingon69
It''s a figment of the ACLU''s imagination. There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution. Perhpas it''s the Russian Constitution that you''re referring to? It is cited in theirs.
"The United States Code Annotated includes the Declaration of Independence under the heading ''The Organic Laws of the United States of America'' along with the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance. Enabling acts frequently require states to adhere to the principles of the Declaration; in the Enabling Act of June 16, 1906, Congress authorized Oklahoma Territory to take steps to become a state. Section 3 provides that the Oklahoma Constitution ''shall not be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and the principles of the Declaration of Independence.'' (Christianity and the Constitution, pp. 360-361)
Fancy Nancy try the Declaration. Fancy Nancy the Righteous ***. Smug, stupid and morally inferior.
Posted by jon2012 at 04:57 PM : Dec 04, 2007
Ok, since atheism is not a "religion", then they should have no say? If aethism is a "religion" would that be favoring one over the other?
Posted by jon2012 at 04:35 PM : Dec 04, 2007
Where exactly in the constitution does it say "seperation of church and state"?
It says that congress can''t make a law that establishes a religion, or forbid the free exercise thereof.
Posted by jh6379 at 04:31 PM : Dec 04, 2007
The term gold and silver certificates also used to grace our money. Portraits on the money have changed, appearance has changed. Is this all part of the NAU? Most money I have seen throughout the world looked very different from ours before, not so much now.
Posted by neoconism at 04:30 PM : Dec 04, 2007
And you still can''t tell the difference between Christianity and Religion. Many have left the churches because of pulpit politics, seen those they trusted fall astray & been let down by the guides placed here for spiritual guidance. That doesn''t mean that they are not Christians. In the true sense they are, because they are removing sin from their sight.
Posted by rushman71
This is because our schools are loaded with socialists who teach a secular agenda and wish to see us go down the tubes. I am very disturbed by this trend and I think all parents should start looking into the quality of education our children are being given. We are losing are freedoms daily, little, by little. I''m glad there are a lot of us around who see the danger and I''m glad John Andrew Murray wrote this piece for the Wall Stree Journal Opinion in November 2007. Glad you enjoyed it.
Posted by Prinzowhales
Then go back to China or Russia or some Arab emirate where you belong.
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive
Is that a fact. Fancy Nancy check out the Preamble to the Constitution.
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."
Given the association of his name with Chase Manhattan, however, Salmon P. Chase is largely remembered for his role as secretary of the Treasury from 1861 to 1864. Seven days after reading the 1861 letter from the Pennsylvania pastor, Chase wrote the following to the director of the Mint in Philadelphia: "Dear Sir, No nation can be strong except in the strength of God or safe except in His defense. The trust of our people in God should be declared on our national coins."
It was several years in the making, but on March 3, 1865, Congress passed a bill calling for "In God We Trust" to be inscribed on U.S. coins. It would be one of the last acts President Lincoln signed into law.
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.
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."
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."
Ironic to say the least.
Posted by gunownerdan
You''re like a bad penny. What does one thing have to do with the other. And if you knew your history, which you obviously don''t, you''d see there''s more to it than just fighting communism or like Fancy Nancy says we should pledge our allegience - heaven forbid we hold our country near and dear.
I relayed John Andrew Murray''s historical reference to In God We Trust on our Coinage and I think I''ll do it again.
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