Religion
Related: About this forumMassachusetts: Pledge of Allegiance Not Religious
May 9, 2014 11:50 AM
BOSTON (AP) The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools does not discriminate against atheists.
The Supreme Judicial Court on Friday said the words under God in the pledge reflect a patriotic practice, not a religious one.
They added that the pledge is entirely voluntary.
An atheist family from Acton sued in 2010 claiming that the daily recitation of the pledge in classrooms violated their three childrens First Amendment rights. The family, who are not identified in the suit, said the ruling insinuates that nonbelievers are less patriotic.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/05/09/massachusetts-pledge-allegiance-not-religious/BrLdHpwMXDNf0SVdlg8ceM/story.html
Here's the decision.
http://www.universalhub.com/2014/jane-doe-others-vs-acton-boxborough-regional
cbayer
(146,218 posts)"under God" is not religious? Really?
That's just ludicrous.
rug
(82,333 posts)Although the words "under God" undeniably have a religious tinge, courts that have considered the history of the pledge and the presence of those words have consistently concluded that the pledge, notwithstanding its reference to God, is a fundamentally patriotic exercise, not a religious one. See, e.g., Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist., 542 U.S. at 6 ("As its history illustrates, the Pledge of Allegiance evolved as a common public acknowledgment of the ideals that our flag symbolizes. Its recitation is a patriotic exercise designed to foster national unity and pride in those principles" ; Newdow v. Rio Linda Union Sch. Dist., 597 F.3d at 1014 ("We hold that the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Establishment Clause [of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution] because Congress' ostensible and predominant purpose was to inspire patriotism and that the context of the Pledge--its wording as a whole, the preamble to the statute, and this nation's history--demonstrate that it is a predominantly patriotic exercise. For these reasons, the phrase 'one Nation under God' does not turn this patriotic exercise into a religious activity" ; Myers v. Loudon County Pub. Sch., 418 F.3d 395, 407 (4th Cir.2005) (distinguishing constitutional challenge to pledge from school prayer cases because of "the simple fact that the Pledge, unlike prayer, is not a religious exercise or activity, but a patriotic one"; stating that inclusion of words "under God," despite their religious significance, "does not alter the nature of the Pledge as a patriotic activity" . It is principally for that reason that all of the Federal appellate courts that have considered a First Amendment challenge to the voluntary recitation of the pledge in public schools, with the words "under God," have held the practice to be constitutional. See Freedom From Religion Found. v. Hanover Sch. Dist., 626 F.3d 1, 4-5 (1st Cir.2010), cert. denied, 131 S.Ct. 2292 (2011); Croft v. Perry, 624 F.3d 157, 162-163 (5th Cir.2010); Newdow v. Rio Linda Union Sch. Dist., supra at 1042; Myers, supra at 408; and Sherman v. Community Consol. Sch. Dist. 21 of Wheeling Township, 980 F.2d 437, 439- 440 (7th Cir.1992), cert. denied, 508 U.S. 950 (1993). (FN17)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)is that they are less "patriotic" because they object to it.
I think it needs to be taken out.
rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)But, perhaps one step at a time?
rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)NT
Jim__
(14,059 posts)The American form of government was definitely founded on the belief that humans are endowed by their creator with certain rights. Accepting that premise, we can assume that rationality allows us to discern those rights, and that assumption is made explicit in the Bill of Rights:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I don't believe that evolution bestowed any rights upon us. Is there any current legal theory as to what other rights we have, or how we determine what they are? Our current policy seems to be that the Supreme Court gets to decide; and we all know that we can't expect any consistency in Supreme Court decisions.
rug
(82,333 posts)Douglas famously wrote (page 484): "The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/381/479
They're supposed to rule on cases as presented; their job is to acknowledge whether a particular action is protected or unprotected under the Constitution, not to define those undefined rights.
But, politics trumps everything.
struggle4progress
(118,214 posts)I personally don't understand the Cult of the Pledge, which Massachusetts law (on its face) enshrines by offering to fine teachers who fail to require its recitation. IMO a teacher who was so fined might have standing to sue against that statute, though to judge from the facts here the law seems unenforced. The plaintiffs here lost by summary judgment in the lower court, presumably because nobody actually forced anyone to say the pledge, either in part or in entirety, and because there was no evidence offered of any consequences whatsoever against anyone who failed to say any part of the pledge (including the whole pledge) for any reason. I suspect the standard for actual governmental infringement upon religious belief (including lack thereof) to be strict, in the sense that an injury against religious (or irreligious) conviction might be found even when there is nothing more than rather minor embarrassment construable as coercion of conscience -- but the plaintiffs here apparently offer no evidence of so much as that.
They sought .. relief, including ... a declaration that the recitation of a form of the pledge with the words "under God" omitted would not violate the Massachusetts Constitution. But as there is no evidence anyone forced the children to recite the pledge at all, nor that anyone insisted that the children recite every word of the pledge if they recited any of it, the suit is a bucket of nothing
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)object to it also. It is not just athiests. Maybe these people to take a course in Comparative Religions?
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)is religious. There's no way around it. When you start talking about your invisible friend, for which there is no evidence of its existence, it's either religious or you need a padded room. Take your pick.
struggle4progress
(118,214 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)"Ceremonial deism." Unbelievable.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)the general theology was 1) "Jesus was American"/"Jesus is your ultimate therapist" or 2) "who is this 'Gii-soos' you speak of?"--even Time got in the act, though more in a Wellsian than Nietzschean manner; this ceremonial deism is a perfect exemplar of this period in US theological evolution; "young-Earth" creationism was then seen as the self-indulgent, theologically-cockeyed Adventist heresy that it actually is (http://www.amazon.com/Where-Darwin-Meets-Bible-Evolutionists/dp/0195182812)
fundies didn't jump back until the mid-70s rise of the New Right (Team B, Powell-Memo types, EvoPsych, Chicago School anarcho-capitalists (Greenspan said we shouldn't regulate derivatives because they're beyond all human understanding), even the astrophysicists): together with the right-liberts, Big Biz, and the roid-raging warmongers the Religious Right was one of Reagan's four well-funded pillars
but I'm also sure that the Doobie Brothers had something to do with the televangelists' rise
even the baptist had a 70s coup that hurled them rightwards:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention_conservative_resurgence
(heck, the Baptists started out as communalists--like the Pietists who brought Agrippa to Pennsylvania and the Puritan alchemists of New London and New Hampshire)