Does God belong in the Pledge? Fifty years ago, Congress added 'under God' to the Pledge of Allegiance. A California atheist claims that recitation of the phrase in public schools violates the Constitution.

• Author: Greenhouse, Linda
• Position: National

Michael A. Newdow stood before the Justices of the Supreme Court on March 24, pointed to one of the courtroom's two American flags, and declared: "I am an atheist. I don't believe in God."

With passion and precision, he argued his own case for why the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in his daughter's public-school classroom violates the Constitution as long as the pledge contains the words "under God."

Last year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals--one of 13 appeals courts, which are the last stop before the Supreme Court for cases coming through the federal court system--ruled in Newdow's favor that the addition of "under God" turned the pledge into a "profession of religious belief" and made it constitutionally unsuitable for daily recitation in the public schools. Newdow's challenge is part of the ongoing debate on the separation of church and state in America.

A COMPLEX HISTORY

When the pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Boston minister, educator, and Socialist, it did not include the phrase "under God." During the 1920s, '30s, and '40s, the pledge became more popular, and many states passed laws requiring its recitation in public schools. In 1943, in response to a challenge by Jehovah's Witnesses (whose religion forbids saluting flags), the Supreme Court ruled that students cannot be forced to recite the pledge if it contradicts their personal beliefs.

Congress added "under God" in 1954, during the Cold War, in an effort to distinguish the American system from "Godless Communism." (The following year, Congress mandated that the phrase "In God We Trust" appear on all U.S. money, not just on coins, as it had until then.)

Newdow, a nonpracticing lawyer who works as an emergency-room doctor in Los Angeles, engaged the Justices in repartee more like dinner-table discussion than formal courtroom discourse. For example, when Newdow described "under God" as a divisive addition to the pledge, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist asked him what the vote in Congress had been 50 years ago when the phrase was inserted.

The vote was unanimous, Newdow said. "Well, that doesn't sound divisive," Rehnquist observed.

Newdow shot back, "That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office." The audience broke into applause, a rare event at the Supreme Court.

Earlier, Justice Stephen G. Breyer suggested that "under God" had acquired such a broad meaning and "civic context" that "it's meant to include virtually everybody...