A Sacramento atheist’s challenge to the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, which stirred a legal and political frenzy nearly a decade ago, has quietly expired in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Michael Newdow said Tuesday, however, that he isn’t giving up and plans to file one or more lawsuits this year in hopes of winning a favorable ruling that would eventually reach the high court.
The “under God” language was a 1950s bolt-on to an 1890’s Pledge. Dr. Newdow seems a man-possessed by such trivia, but I suspect he will be perpetually disappointed. The Court, to the extent one can surmise anything from a refusal to hear a case, seems to be of the collective view that the “under God” phrase falls within the category of Justice Brennan’s (if memory serves) “ceremonial deism”, a kind of ritualistic incantation of no great sectarian content that does no violence to Constitutional protections of religion.