All I can say is, god bless cheap irony.
Supreme Court to Consider Case on 'Under God' in Pledge to Flag: The Supreme Court added the Pledge of Allegiance to the docket for its new term on Tuesday, agreeing to consider whether public schools violate the Constitution by requiring teachers to lead their classes in pledging allegiance to the flag of "one nation under God."
The justices, who begin their daily sessions with heads bowed as the marshal intones "God save the United States and this honorable court," accepted a case that, like the affirmative action and gay rights cases of the last term, places the court at the center of a public controversy. Justice Antonin Scalia, who has made clear his view that the pledge is constitutional, will not participate, raising the possibility of a 4-to-4 tie.
Regardless of Scalia's participation, one wonders how the Court could possibly strike "under God" from the pledge and then retain its daily prayer or, for that matter, the Congressional Chaplain, who does much the same thing. That said, unless the Court was prepared to strike the language, the only real reason to have accepted the case is so that they may, yet one more time, reverse a decision out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
That said, as amended, it would seem that the decision from the Ninth Circuit would be essentially unarguable.
In an amended opinion issued this year, the court narrowed its ruling by confining it to the public school context, invalidating school policies that required teachers to lead willing students in the pledge.
The students' willingness or lack thereof would not seem to be a proper issue for consideration. After all, elementary school students, for the most part, simply do what they're told. Beyond that, it would seem improper to force teachers to lead students in the pledge, or to force students to recite it. How meaningful is a forced pledge?
Posted by iain at October 15, 2003 03:27 PM
