Tuesday, March 16, 2010
"One Nation Under God" Rendered Constitutional
I selected two articles from the Chicago Tribune that discuss the decision made by the federal appeals court on Thursday regarding the phrase “one nation under god” in the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” printed on currency. The first article gives a brief history of the case that ruled in 2002 that the phrase was a violation of The Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment (which “prohibits the enactment of a law or official policy that establishes a religion or religious faith”). The Thursday ruling reversed itself, stating that the phrases are not unconstitutional. The second article (a topic piece), is a simplified version of the first and gives different citations of the judges’ rulings.
In these articles, the two main justifications behind the court’s decision are: first, that these phrases do not breach the establishment clause because neither are required practices (students are not forced to recite the pledge, and it is not essential to have the phrase printed on currency) and second, these phrases are not religious but ceremonial and patriotic (similar to arguments made against Jehovah’s Witnesses refusal to salute the flag).
Although the first of these may seem easier to support than the second, I’m still not sure I’m sold. The first justification states that neither of these phrases is a government statute and therefore isn’t required by the government. Does this mean that as a result the government can’t forbid them either? This seems to be at odds with the objective of the federal government: to protect people from having their rights violated. But, if they aren’t forced to recite it how are their rights violated? Well, it seems unavoidable to handle money in one’s own country which may, for some, represent part of their identity (their nationality which seems to be embracing religious invocations).
This leads to the second justification: that these aren’t religious phrases but ceremonial and/or patriotic. Although there are several issues at hand here when it comes to defining religious terms or what is religious, it seems counterintuitive to claim that these are not religious terms. Claiming they aren’t religious takes away their fundamental meaning which would give it a ceremonial or patriotic meaning in the first place. Furthermore, to claim that such phrases are “patriotic” seems to mean that there is something about these terms that is fundamental to the nation. I’m not sure that this avoids the complaint made by those who object to the phrases. For me, if these phrases are going to be rendered constitutional it should be justified in other terms than these.
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