Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

May 2003 – What was once thought unlikely – if not impossible – has now come to pass for the millions of children going to public school under the authority of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. On February 28 the full panel of that appellate court upheld a ban on the recitation of the words, “under God,” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The original lawsuit challenging the wording of the Pledge was filed by atheist Michael Newdow. A three-member panel ruled 2-1 last June that the words “under God” amounted to an unconstitutional promotion of religion. 

A storm of controversy followed that earlier decision, and the panel soon modified its decision to say that it was only when teachers led children in the recitation of the Pledge that the words became unconstitutional.

The full Ninth Circuit court refused to overturn the ban, although the enforcement of the ruling was postponed until an appeal could be made to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Elk Grove Unified School District in California has filed that appeal.

“If the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the Elk Grove appeal of the Ninth Circuit ruling, then the decision of the original two judges stands,” said AFA Chairman Don Wildmon. “That decision will affect nine or 10 million school children in nine western states in the U.S.”

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people are flocking to an AFA website dedicated to a petition asking for a constitutional amendment protecting both the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Motto.

As of March 31, more than 1.7 million people had either signed AFA’s online petition or downloaded the hard copy version from the Website and passed it around to be signed.

Wildmon said the goal is to gather 10 million signatures in order to press home to congressional leaders that Americans are fed up with judicial activism. The proposed amendment would prohibit judges from declaring unconstitutional the words “under God” in the Pledge, as well as protect the words of the National Motto, “In God We Trust.”

“It’s bad enough that the ideal of our nation being ‘under God’ has been stripped away, because that is a sentiment held by the overwhelming majority of Americans,” Wildmon said. “But the fact that it was done by only two judges is ludicrous! Even if the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear the appeal, a mere five justices could permanently wipe away those ideals forever.

“A constitutional amendment is the only permanent bulwark against the tampering of judges who do not understand the Constitution as written by the founding fathers,” he said.