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Headage What's in a Word? By now I'm sure you've heard about the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the Pledge of Allegiance "unconstitutional." Makes for a good headline, doesn't it? But that's not quite the whole story. From WaPo's mercifully brief account: "The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1954 act of Congress inserting the phrase "under God" after the words "one nation" in the pledge. The court said the phrase violates the so-called Establishment Clause in the Constitution that requires a separation of church and state." Dig the difference: it's not the Pledge, it's those two little pesky words, "under God." The NYT points out: "In 1984, several liberal members of the Supreme Court, including Thurgood Marshall, Harry A. Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and William J. Brennan Jr., said references like "In God We Trust," which appears on United States currency and coins, were protected from the Establishment Clause because their religious significance had been lost through rote repetition." In the middle of all this--or rather, at the beginning of it--is atheist Michael A. Newdow, who filed the lawsuit. Acting as his own lawyer, he argued that his daughter's First Amendment rights were violated because she was forced to "watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that ours is 'one nation under God.'" Mr. Newdow told the AP that he and his family have been threatened, a "personal and scary" experience, apparently. That's unfortunate, because no one should be threatened for acting on their beliefs via established legal processes. Such action also encourages the ideological heirs of Madalyn Murray O'Hair to believe that anybody who believes in God is a violent, medieval idiot. Now then. Mr. Newdow professed that he was doing this out of concern for his daughter who, he said last night on ABC News, was made to feel like an "outcast." Huh. I felt like an outcast in elementary school, too. I wish I had known at the time that there was a legal remedy for that sort of thing. And I wonder how Mr. Newdow's eight-year-old daughter is dealing with all of the media attention? I'm sure that the other kids are leaving her alone now, cowed by the fact that her father can act as his own lawyer. She'll adjust to all of this quite nicely, confirmed in her bedrock belief in atheism by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It must be amazing to have a daughter who's capable of deciding her theology before she's out of the fourth grade. Truly gifted, that one. That being said, I must observe that Michael A. Newdow is an intellectual coward. He's using his daughter as a shield for his own political agenda, claiming concern for her psychological and social well-being when, in fact, he is acting solely on his own beliefs about the proper interpretation of the First Amendment and the Establishment Clause. Won't someone please think of the children! Why do I say that it's an agenda, as opposed to parental concern? Because in June of 1998 Mr. Newdow sued President Clinton, the U.S. Congress, and the School Board of Broward County, Florida over the same Pledge of Allegiance issue. He also sued George Bush because Franklin Graham mentioned Jesus Christ during his inaugural prayer in 2000 (The Sacramento Bee: "Federal Prayer Challenge Advances," September 29, 2000; The American Enterprise: "Sidelights," March 2002). In addition, he is a 'minister of atheism', ordained by the Universal Life Church, which will ordain anybody who asks. Back in 1999, he said that he would be opening his own internet-based church, for which he's created a clever name: the First Amendment Church of True Science (FACTS). According to Google, that hasn't happened yet. But it does seem that Mr. Newdow, an emergency room physician by trade, has made something of a hobby out of suing the federal government over religious issues. I'm sure we can expect to hear much more from him for as long as his daughter is in the public school system. According to various studies conducted in 1999 and 2000: "[...] overwhelming majorities say they believe in God. More than nine in 10 Americans—95 percent—told ABC News polltakers that they believe in God. A Gallup Organization survey for CNN and USA Today last December found much the same thing: Nearly nine in 10—86 percent—said they believed in God, while another 8 percent said they believe in some form of "Universal spirit or higher power." Mr. Newdow represents, at most, 14% of all Americans. Was his daughter beaten up for her staunch, rationalist atheism? Did she have her lunch money stolen after she spouted Bertrand Russell on the playground? Was she denied access to educational opportunities? Forced to ride the in back of the bus? Nope. She was uncomfortable. What do you suppose her father will do when she has to defend her Master's thesis? Sue the Board of Review? I tend to agree with Justice Marshall, et. al. on this one. It is the knee-jerk reactions of dogmatists like Mr. Newdow, for whom the very word "God" is an instrument of oppression, that corrupt our society. He believes that by controlling the words used in public discourse, he can control the public discourse. It's one more example of the fascist leanings instilled by the tenebrous morass of post-modern theory that often passes for higher education these days. It's the same magical ideology that turns fat people into "persons of size" and ethnic minorities into hyphenated Americans. And, ultimately, it is an ideology that will fail. It's not the word that's important, Mr. Newdow. It's the idea. Who do you sue to protect your daughter from that?
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