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New Haven, CT — The U.S. Supreme Court today threw out a legal challenge to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a result that Supreme Knight Carl Anderson called "very good news."
"Now, school children in California can once again recite the Pledge of Allegiance — the entire Pledge — without fear of being muzzled by a federal court," Anderson said. "And we are all free to affirm, as we recite the Pledge, the fundamental truth first expressed in our Declaration of Independence, that we 'are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights.'"
The Knights of Columbus was primarily responsible for persuading Congress to add the words "under God" to the Pledge in 1954. (Learn about the Knights' involvement with the Pledge.) In an amicus curiae brief filed with the court, the Knights argued that the phrase restates a fundamental premise of American government well-known and well-understood since the earliest days of the republic: that "our rights are only inalienable because they inhere in a human nature that has been 'endowed' with such rights by its 'Creator.'"
Although today's decision was based on "standing," holding that atheist Michael Newdow was not legally entitled to file his suit in the first place, the effect is to erase an opinion by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the words "under God" were unconstitutional.
Anderson praised the separate opinion by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, which declared that giving Newdow or any other parent "a sort of 'heckler's veto' over a patriotic ceremony willingly participated in by other students, simply because the Pledge of Allegiance contains the descriptive phrase 'under God,' is an unwarranted extension of the Establishment Clause, an extension which would have the unfortunate effect of prohibiting a commendable patriotic observance."
"To that," Anderson said, "I can only add 'Amen.'"
The Knights' amicus brief noted that "under God" was added at the height of the Cold War as a way of distinguishing the United States from the Soviet Union: "By adopting the phrase 'under God' in the Pledge, Congress explicitly sought to draw a distinction between the 'natural rights' philosophy of Madison, Jefferson and other Founders, on which the American system is based, and the Soviet view that rights, such as they are, are conferred at the pleasure of the State."
The full text of the amicus brief filed by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on behalf of the Knights of Columbus can be found on The Becket Fund web site.
Text of the "Opinion of the Court," delivered by Justice Stevens, is available here along with concurring statements by Justice Rehnquist, Justice O'Connor and Justice Thomas.
Justice Stevens, Opinion of the Court
Justice Rehnquist, concurring in judgment
Justice O'Connor, concurring in judgment
Justice Thomas, concurring in judgment
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