One nation, many gods: vouchers, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the separation of church and state.

• Author: Young, Cathy
• Position: Columns

IN LATE JUNE two controversial legal rulings, one far more notorious than the other, considered the separation of church and state. On June 26 a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in a public school with the words "one nation, under God" amounts to state establishment of religion and thus is unconstitutional, The next day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, to 4, that it does not violate the Constitution to let parents use publicly funded vouchers at parochial schools.

Most people who supported the Supreme Court's ruling on vouchers denounced the 9th Circuit ruling on the Pledge, and vice versa. But maybe both courts were right.

Figures from across the political spectrum denounced the first ruling as outrageous and crazy, and members of Congress trooped out onto the steps of the Capitol en masse to bravely recite the Pledge. The conservative columnist Cal Thomas opined that "the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists" on 9/11.

Yet quite a few Legal experts, not all of them left of center, say the opinion was based on logical, if debatable, constitutional reasoning with a good deal of precedent behind it. The disputed words do seem to turn the Pledge into a state-sanctioned endorsement of belief in God, and to exclude not only atheists and agnostics but followers of polytheistic religions such as Hinduism and nontheistic ones such as Buddhism.

Since constitutional doctrine and legal precedent can be interpreted either way, the courts that will hear the case on appeal are likely to go with the version that seems less divisive. Many liberals see this as a good way to avoid a nasty culture war over a minor issue. On the other hand, attorney Matthew Hoffman has argued in The New Republic that the vehement reaction to the Pledge ruling demonstrates that the court was right--and he has a paradoxical point. Much of this reaction reflects attitudes that bode ill for religious liberty, at least for the nonreligious.

Take President Bush's statement that the decision "points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God." Does this mean that we now have a religious test for public office? When it comes to judgeships, should nonbelievers not apply?

Or take the suggestion--offered by several conservative pundits, such...