'Under God' doesn't belong in the pledge

A perfect storm is gathering over the U.S. Supreme Court. A confluence of major divisive disputes is converging on the nation's highest court, promising to put it in the headlines more often than any time in recent history.

The latest turbulence arrived at the court April 30. The thorny dispute over whether the words "under God" belong in the Pledge of Allegiance blew in from California - easily the most emotional case the court will face in years. If the court follows its precedents, the answer in the case is clear; the two words have to go.

Close behind this difficult case will be a First Amendment dispute over the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform bill, which a lower court challenged on May 2. Meanwhile, the court also is weighing hot-button disputes over affirmative action at the University of Michigan and laws against homosexual activities in Texas. Throw in battles over capital punishment, Miranda warnings and a potential justice retirement or two, and the late justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' description of the Supreme Court as a "storm center" shapes up as an understatement.

As important as those matters are, they will probably not generate as much angry debate as the Pledge case. It was forced upon the courts by a Sacramento atheist, Michael Newdow, who was bothered that his daughter had to "watch and listen" while a teacher leads the class in what he described as "a ritual proclaiming that there is a God." He sued, and now the case is before the Supreme Court. If, as expected, the court agrees to hear the case, we are in for a year of pseudo-patriotic posturing and finger-pointing arguments - all over two words.

Face it. In your heart of hearts, you know, and the court likely knows, that deleting "under God" from the Pledge is the right answer in a nation that is supposed to respect those who believe in no God or believe in other higher beings with other names. As the lower court suggested, if you would object to the words "under Zeus" or "under no God," then you should also have problems with "under God."

Here is how the Pledge would read without those two words. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It conveys all the patriotism a unifying pledge should contain - and none of the exclusion of the current pledge. Try it. After saying it once, you won't even notice anything is missing.

And guess vvhat? Nothing really is missing. Americans recited the Pledge without "under God" from the time it was first written in 1892 until 1954, carrying the nation through two world wars and several smaller ones. It was only in 1954 that Congress, frantic about the march of godless communism, passed a law inserting the words "under God." Neither Congress nor President Dwight Eisenhower, who signed the bill, made any bones about the religious intent of the added words. "From this day forward," Eisenhower said, "the millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim . . . the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."

When Alabama passed a law to begin school days with a moment of silence, the Supreme Court in 1985 struck it down. If religiously driven silence is unconstitutional, then adding "under God" must also be. More recently, the court said that even student-led invocations before football games were not permitted.

The Bush administration, in its petition to the high court, argues that the Pledge is not like a prayer or invocation. "Not every reference to God amounts to impermissible government-endorsed religious exercise," the government asserts. True enough. But for schoolchildren, reciting the Pledge in a ritualized way, with hand over chest, comes pretty close.

When you are saying the Pledge, you are not just reciting a nursery rhyme or passively handling a coin that has "In God We Trust" on it. You are actively promising belief in and loyalty to a set of values that include, thanks to those two words, monotheism. Not everyone believes in that value. If the First Amendment means anything, those who don't should not feel compelled to state that they do.

The only way that this reference to God in a student's daily life can be made constitutionally acceptable is to assert that the two words really have no meaning - that the words "under God" have become so commonplace that they have been stripped of any religious significance. "Ceremonial deism" is how some legal scholars describe it: a rote expression of faith in God that no one listens to or thinks twice about anymore. That is a hollow "burn down the village to save it" kind of argument that does not have much merit. And it ignores the reality that only 49 years ago, the words were inserted into the Pledge with the intention that they be fervently embraced, not blithely ignored.

We will see whether the court sends the public an unpopular but obvious message: "Under God" has to go. Stormy as the reaction will be, the ship of state will survive.