The highest court in Massachusetts upheld the legality of the phrase \u201cunder God\u201d\u009d in the Pledge of Allegiance on Friday (May 9), dealing a blow to atheist groups who challenged the pledge on anti-discrimination grounds.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court said the daily, teacher-led recitation of the pledge in state public schools does not violate the state\u2019s equal rights amendment and is not discriminatory against the children of atheists, humanists and other nontheists.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticipation is entirely voluntary,\u201d\u009d the court wrote as a whole in the decision of Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, brought by an anonymous humanist family. \u201c(A)ll students are presented with the same options; and one student\u2019s choice not to participate because of a religiously held belief is, as both a practical and a legal matter, indistinguishable from another\u2019s choice to abstain for a wholly different, more mundane, and constitutionally insignificant reason.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n