Sweeeeet! (but you knew I was going to say that)

You godless heathen.

Actually, the original Pledge doesn't mention God at all ... God wasn't added until 1954.

Shows a lot of incite and courage to go against what the other side claims to be 90 % of the american people

From the point of view of those of us who believe the US government is not nearly secular enough, insight and courage are indeed the operative words. As with all strong and controversial left-seeming judicial decisions, however, I get nervous that the right will just use these things as a blunt instrument, riding the wave of popular resentment (if I may mix my metaphors thus) to some sort of ridiculously intrusive legislation. PATRIOT act, anyone?

The decision "points up the fact that we need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God," said Bush, who has been battling with Senate Democrats to force quicker action on his nominees to fill federal court vacancies. "Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench."

Sorry - the above was a quote from todays Wastington Post.

It’s interesting how people (read; President Junior) manage to further the myth that the Founding Fathers were all about God, with the implication that they were down with the Christian God. And even if we can take such phrases in the Declaration of Independence (http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/declaration/declaration_transcription.html) as “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them” to reflect a belief in a Christian God, what, then do we make of the later phrases such as “that [men] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men”? Are we to assume that the framers shifted their views from the first to the second paragraph? That we should only be concerned about the governing of the male sex? It’s not news that most strict constructionists are like states’ rights advocates — principled only at the service of expediency. I have yet to hear, see, or read a reputable public figure maintain a consistent position of strict construction, but I would be interested in learning of one.
Certainly, there are perils of loose construction, especially in the post-Deconstructionist world, when every yahoo and his or her cousin feels free to make the most specious readings of things like the use of “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Your God could be Buddha, Jesus Christ, Allah, yourself, Cal Ripken, Ford trucks or your favorite star in the sky WTF?! Unfortunately, this shows a fundamental (and perhaps disingenous) misunderstanding of not only the founding principles of the United States, but also of the nature of Christianity as well as other religions and indeed atheism. (Of course, this author also uses the &#8220America, love it or leave it” argument that carries no water either.)
Who was it who said (and I paraphrase), “It is not because of America’s many failures that we are angry, but rather because of it’s potential”?

And many of the founding fathers were Deists anyway, not Christians. Jefferson has a great quote about wanting to take a razor blade to the Bible to edit it properly. The good news is that the Dems are pandering, and not getting caught with their pants down pulling a Dukakis on this one. There is no political capital to be made against them here ... (I realize this may not seem like good news to some, but politicians should be smart enough to not fight losing battles just before elections).

First, Tk, I'm aware of the canyon of ecclesiatical and indeed ideological distance between Thomas Jefferson and Jerry Falwell. First year History classes taught us that The Founding Fathers were Deists, who knew that the Good Lord comes in Episcopal, Methodist and even Unitarian cloth. But I believe that the main idea is that they did accept the concept that freedom devolved from a power and a source far better and stronger than mankind. And that the Republic would never be so bigoted as to think it derived its freedom and special place among the nations of their world (it was the only republic, other than Switzerland) from a God of a particular religion, but a God who loved and protected all men, whatever their faith.

Having the phrase "Under God," in the Pledge is very important to me for many religious and historical reasons. First, I believe that God exists, to me he has always been a real and constant presence in my life. And I have always thought that a nation, with a vibrant and contentious religious life was Freedom's ally, never its enemy. Also the Phrase "One Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all," serves as a charge and a warning to each of us. A charge to do all we can to make certain the phrase becomes a reality for everyone in this country one day soon. A warning to those, on the left, right and everywhere else that any attempt to limit another citizens constituional rights, is not merely a violation of the laws of Man but of the laws of God.

Certainly, that was the reason that Frederick Douglass, Dr. King, My Grandparents, my mother and father and thousands of people who names will never appear in a history book, escaped slavery,marched, sang, sat-in and died. They didn't do any of these things because they thought that another man held the patent to their right to live as free people in this country. They fought because they knew that each day that they were held in Slavery, each time that they were denied an education, the right to vote and the right to live, it wasn't just a violation of the 14th, 15th and 16th amendements, it was a contravention of God's law; that we are all made in his image men, women, of every color and therefore we are no worse or better than each other. They fought for the idea of one nation, under God that was indivisible, and we honor their sacrifice whenever we recite the words "One Nation, Under God" with thoughtfulness and a sense of memory.

I don't disagree that religion can be a very important part of civic life and that in fact, freedom of religion originally meant "practice whatever religion you want (and we are sure you will!)"

But as time has gone on, there have arisen cultural movements that ignore or deny the existence of the supernatural, and immigration to the United States of pantheistic and polytheistic peoples has increased. My beef, in other words, is that there are many reasons for upholding the rights we enjoy and for striving to fulfill the promise of America. For some that is a God, for others the Brotherhood of Man, for others it is the sanctity of the Earth on which we live — all supra-human, but not all divine and certainly not all theistic. To me, shoehorning children into the notion that religion equates to morality fights (though true, it does not deny) their abililty to grow up in a tradition that upholds many of the same beliefs (e.g. the much-mocked secular humanism) that the government espouses but does not embrace the spiritual reasoning behind it.

For what it’s worth, I grew up in the Protestant Christian tradition and derive some of my bases for behavior from that, maybe more than I know. Socially active Christianity to me is one of the finer expressions of that religion, and I don’t by any stretch want to reject the good that it has done.

Thanks for your thoughts on the subject, Richard. I'm also of the conviction that, by and large, religion is a civic good. Morality cannot be legislated, and while religion does not equal morality, it certainly encourages it.

But here's the question: what does the Pledge of Allegiance mean? It is an affirmation of patriotism. We pledge ourselves to the symbol and to the nation. We affirm that the nation is indivisible -- that while we have differences of opinion, we share in our common belief in democracy. At least, that's what I think it means. It's an act of nationalism, pure and simple, (and I mean that in a good way.)

But when it comes to God, we are divisible. We just don't all believe the same thing. We're not even at the point where we can say that we all believe in a monotheistic deity Whom we worship in different ways. Don't we want everyone to feel patriotic regardless of their faith? Wouldn't that make us a stronger country?

And let's not forget that the slaveholders and the segregationists also beleived that they were upholding God's law.

(Here is a humorous take on the Pledge business. "One nation, under indictment"? And here is Hentoff's predictable take.)