Atheist doctor and lawyer Michael Newdow is back for another try at getting “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. You may recall that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his case last year because Newdow did not have custody of his daughter and thus lacked standing. This time Newdow has eight co-plaintiffs on board, all custodial parents.
The other plaintiffs in Newdow’s latest lawsuit, filed in Sacramento on Monday, are not named because of inevitable adverse publicity, he says. A San Francisco Chronicle story says no court date has been set.
Newdow bases his case on the Constitution’s clear intent that church and state remain separate. When the high court dismissed his previous case in June, the story says, several justices indicated they hold little sympathy for Newdow’s cause.
Church-state separation is an essential guiding principle for America. It’s vital to our democratic tradition and for our highly diverse society. That’s not only because separation protects people from having a religion forced on them but also because it keeps government from subverting or dominating any religion or all religions.
Government’s proper attitude is polite, respectful but neutral indifference. It’s proper role with respect to religion is to protect and defend every American’s right to follow the dictates of his or her own conscience.
Yet we recognize practical limits beyond which overly assiduous assertion of this principle becomes threatening and offensive, where certain traditional references to God, generically, and to religion are concerned.
Let’s put it this way. A city council sets 1 a.m. as the time beyond which no liquor can be sold, in an ordinance. City police know that on certain mornings they could easily place a few plainclothes officers in certain taverns and catch the owners in technical violation of the ordinance: a minute over here, five minutes there.
But wisely the police decline to do that. Unless they get wind of a tavern owner repeatedly operating well past 1 a.m., in open disregard of the law, they just don’t bother with it. Why? Because as a practical matter no real harm is being done. Because they have much more important business to tend to. Because it’s just not worth the fuss a gonzo crackdown would generate.
The same approach makes sense for “under God” in the pledge. As a practical matter, youngsters from nonreligious families need only remain silent for those two words — not a big deal unless too-strident adults make it one.
Some will protest this makes those nonreligious children feel or appear different. The truth is that their situation — being nonbelievers in the midst of believers — is by definition one of being different. But so what?
Those kids, like all children, will spend their whole lives landing in situations where they’re different in some way or other. Differentness isn’t necessarily pejorative or traumatic.
However, if nonreligious children are mistreated or otherwise harmed for their belief (or nonbelief), that’s actual discrimination and may, depending on the severity, be cause for seeking relief of some kind in court.
Bottom line: Newdow has a right to wage this fight and he has a point. What he lacks is the wisdom to let it be. Here’s hoping the Supreme Court will leave “under God” in the pledge.
It lessens the court’s importance when they deal with these somewhat trivial matters.
rightsaidfred, I don’t think the court’s importance is what really matters. The issues of changing the pledge and church/state is what it’s all about.
It isn’t mentioned here but Newdow’s ex-wife does not agree with his atheism and does not want him getting their daughter involved.