Ashcroft gets new top priority

CNN.com - Court rules Pledge of Allegiance 'unconstitutional'

History of the Pledge of Allegiance

PDF of the decision

The article mentions that the 9th Circuit is the most liberal and the most overturned appeals court in the US, and I'm sure the current Supreme Court would be likely to overturn this, but hurray to the 2 judges in the majority.

For the government to claim that "one nation under God" has minimal religious content is ridiculous. They really mean that it has minimal sectarian content -- that it won't be offensive to any of the world's major religions.

It's the same perspective that leads to the label "atheist", with its suggestion that to be so is to be against something, presumably the natural order.

'Atheist' is a word intended to marginalize and minimalize folks who have no use for gods, in the exact same way some people label lesbians as man-haters.

Perhaps a better label would be "rationalist", where a rationalist has a world view that relies entirely on explainable causes for its creation and maintenance.

The folks prosecuting this case for the government apparently can't perceive of a universe that works that way.

According to this link, the pledge was written in 1892 by a Christian Socialist, who opposed the change from "my flag" to "the flag of the United States of America", and whose family say he would have opposed the change adding "under God" in 1954.

Update: The Senate has jumped into the fray, voting 99-0 for motherhood and apple pie, "racing" to the steps of the Capitol to show their support by reciting the "theists' pledge". Sen. Zell Miller (R/D-Ga.) is right in the middle of it, calling the ruling "disgraceful".