Federal court upholds New Hampshire law that allows the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited in schools

  Here in New Hampshire there is a state law–called the New Hampshire School Patriot Act–that requires all schools to set aside time for the students to voluntarily recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This law does not require the students to recite the Pledge mind you, it simply offers them the opportunity to do so during a time that is set aside by the individual schools.

  Here is the full text of the New Hampshire law:

I. As a continuation of the policy of teaching our country’s history to the elementary and secondary pupils of this state, this section shall be known as the New Hampshire School Patriot Act. 

II. A school district shall authorize a period of time during the school day for the recitation of the pledge of allegiance. Pupil participation in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance shall be voluntary.

III. Pupils not participating in the recitation of the pledge of allegiance may silently stand or remain seated but shall be required to respect the rights of those pupils electing to participate. If this paragraph shall be declared to be unconstitutional or otherwise invalid, the remaining paragraphs in this section shall not be affected, and shall continue in full force and effect.

  As you can see, there is no provision which requires a student to recite the Pledge against the student’s will, but that did not stop the Freedom From Religion Foundation from filing a lawsuit against the state of New Hampshire, claiming that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was a violation of the separation of church and state because the words “under God” appear in the Pledge. This lawsuit apparently did not take into account that no student is forced to recite the Pledge.

   On Friday a federal appeals court in Boston–of all places–upheld the New Hampshire law  by stating that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance do not violate a student’s constitutional rights–especially when nobody is making a student say those words against their will anyway–and the New Hampshire law will be allowed to stand. The schools will still be required to set aside time for the Pledge and the students can either recite the Pledge or choose not to.

  The court found that the law is not about the “advancement of religion” but is about the “advancement of patriotism” thusly it is not in violation of the constitution. Finally a little sanity on this issue. By allotting a certain amount of time for the students to recite the Pledge if it is something they want to do, the state is not establishing an official religion–which would be a violation of the constitution–but that hasn’t stopped these leftist groups from trying to ban the Pledge all across the country.

   But let us pretend for a moment that because the words “under God” are in the constitution that Pledge is actually a prayer. If students are stopped from reciting the Pledge voluntarily in school, wouldn’t that be a violation of the constitution’s “free exercise thereof” clause in respect to the freedom of religion?

 I have gone into the whole separation of church and state issue a few times in the past so I am just going to repost what I have previously written on the history of this issue:

 The term “separation of church and state” actually appears in a letter that Thomas Jefferson sent to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 in reply to a letter sent to him while he was president, it does not appear in the constitution. The Baptists were worried that they were not going to be allowed to practice their religion so they sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson which stated their concerns. Thomas Jefferson sent a reply to the Baptists to assuage their fear in which he wrote, “ I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”

  It wasn’t until the Reynolds v. United States case in 1878 that a judge ruled Thomas Jefferson’s words in a private conversation captured the essence of the true meaning of the first amendment, thus figuratively writing the “wall of separation between church and state” into the constitution.

  I find it ironic that the Danbury Baptists wrote President Jefferson because they felt that they would not be allowed the free exercise of their religion, to which Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words “separation of church and state” to assure the Baptists that they would be allowed to practice their religion freely, but it is those very words that the leftists in this country use to deny people their right to freely exercise their religion.

  In closing I leave you with Red Skelton’s Pledge of Allegiance: