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June 18, 2004/Sivan 29 5764, Vol. 56, No.39
'Under God' to stay
Atheist father has no standing against pledge
MICHAEL MIKLOFSKY
Staff Writer
Exactly 50 years after the Congress-approved revisions to the Pledge of Allegiance took effect on Flag Day, June 14, 1954, and in the shadow of the Cold War, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court's decision that the words "under God" were unconstitutional.
In the Valley, the decision struck a chord with members of the Jewish community, but will likely have little lasting impact, sources said.
Dr. Michael Newdow, an atheist and lawyer and physician in California, first filed suit five years ago against his then-kindergarten-aged daughter's school district, Elk Grove Unified School District, whose students say the pledge.
The court's 8-0 ruling overturned a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which found the words "under God" in the pledge were unconstitutional.
In the majority opinion written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said that Newdow did not have legal standing based in part a court-ordered custody agreement. The agreement between Newdow and his daughter's mother, Sandra Banning, a Christian, names Banning as the girl's legal guardian and the ultimate authority when it comes to her daughter's education. The parents were never married and do not live together, The New York Times reported.
Rabbi Arthur Lavinsky of Beth El Congregation in Phoenix, works with couples who have a different "faith orientation" from each other and said that he has "dealt with many people who have gotten divorced.
"Often the child is used as a battering ram, one parent against the other," he said.
Lavinsky did not say that had happened in this case, but speculated that the case, "could be simply a manifestation of a disagreement that a man has with a woman.
"A 5-year-old child would not personally hold such a position," he said. "The father here felt that the pledge was inappropriate, not the child. This was his battle, not hers."
Rabbi Harris Cooperman, principal of the Phoenix Hebrew Academy, said that students at his school say the pledge every day and have done so for years, but that "no one has ever brought it up or commented about it."
"This country has been founded on certain ethics that derive from certain Judeo-Christian ethics," he said. "Certainly a separation of church and state is in order and even mandated, but there has to be an acknowledgement on some hand that we acknowledge God in our own lives and that type of acknowledgement is certainly acceptable."
Cooperman grew up attending a yeshiva day school and remembered the words "under God" being added to the pledge.
"We always said it and it was never a contradiction. You were proud to be a Jew and you were proud to be an American."
Students at other area Jewish day schools also say the pledge each day.
Ilene Blau, executive director of the Tri-City Jewish Community Center, said that she has heard no complaints from Tri-City JCC Day School students or their parents.
If someone did have a problem with their child saying it, she said, "As a parent, they could ask to be excused and they would be excused. It would not be a requirement if they had justification."
When dealing with families where each parent is of a different belief, "Sometimes there is re-sistance in sending the child to a Jewish preschool or day school," Blau said. "When couples get married, they don't always consider the consequences."
One Reform rabbi said that including "under God" in the pledge compromises the separation of church and state.
"Those of us who are atheist, those of us who believe in multiple gods, those of us who perhaps are even agnostics, cannot say the Pledge of Allegiance," said Rabbi Andrew Straus of Temple Emanuel of Tempe. "(Newdow) is bringing up a very legitimate point.
"I would be fully supportive of removing the words 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," he said. "They were put in there to make a political point in the 1950s ... during the McCarthy era as a way of weeding out com-munists."
Matthew E. Berger of JTA contributed to this story.
Contact the writer at michael_miklofsky@jewishaz.com.
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