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

These are the first words of the first amendment to the US Constitution.

Hannity and Colmes are doing a special show at a college located across the street from my former employer. Oliver North is currently debating Michael Newdow, the guy who brought the suit to eliminate "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

I'm sure I would disagree with Newdow on most of his politics, but on this, I think he's correct. I also think he's running circles around Sean and Oliver who continue to throw out non sequiturs in order to track the conversation against what I consider to be the most pertinent words to the discussion: the ones I quoted above.

While I don't believe that the Establishment Clause prohibits much of what people claim it does, I simply can't see how the "Under God" line, as it was implemented, passes Constitutional muster.

The Weekly Standard provides some background on the history of the introduction of the words into the Pledge:

the Court of Appeals placed great weight on the fact that Congress inserted the words "under God" into the pledge in 1954 as a means of advancing religion at a time when the nation was engaged in a battle against the doctrines of atheistic communism. The court further noted that when President Eisenhower signed the bill, he stated, "From this day forward, the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim . . . the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty."

So, Congress passed a law with the deliberate intent of advancing religion. To me, that seems to be one thing that IS explicitly forbidden by the Establishment Clause.

Friends have argued with me that an assertion of the existence of God is not by its nature religious. That's ludicrous. It is the very heart of religion, and in the context of the law that was passed by Congress, it's clearly a congressional endorsement of a Christian God.

The Supreme Court copped out on the case when it came to them, throwing it out on the issue of whether or not Newdow had legal standing to sue on behalf of his daughter. So, we'll have to wait for final word on this issue for another day, but I believe, in a rare occurrence, the 9th Circuit actually got this one right.

- served up by Nomad @ 6:25 PM