Pledge of Allegiance Case Goes to the SJC
“under god” does not belong in the pledge, and it was only added in the fifties by fundamentalists during the red scare.
A Fitchburg lawyer told the state’s highest court Wednesday that the words “under God” should be eliminated from the Pledge of Allegiance, saying the phrase labels schoolchildren who do not believe in God as “unpatriotic.”
Justices of the state Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments at a hearing Wednesday from Fitchburg attorney David Niose, who represents the American Humanist Association and “Jane and John Doe,” an atheist family with three children that sued the Acton-Boxboro Regional School District claiming religious discrimination.
In his argument, Niose told justices that schoolchildren have been “indoctrinated” by the pledge over the years to think that believing in God is patriotic. But those two words “invalidates atheists” and labels them as “unpatriotic,” he argued.
Chief Justice Roderick Ireland noted that every morning in courthouses across the state, including the Supreme Judicial Court, court officers use the phrase “God save the commonwealth,” at the start of court session. Roderick suggested that if “under God” is eliminated from the Pledge of Allegiance in schools, it could trigger a ripple effect in courthouses, sporting events and other activities.
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