(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) -- The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
today that he words "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance
"do not violate the Establishment Clause" of the First
Amendment to the Constitution.

The Knights of Columbus led the campaign to add the words "under God"
to the Pledge in the early 1950s, and the trial court agreed to allow
the Knights of Columbus to join the present case as defendants when
it was originally filed in 2005.

"This decision is a victory for common sense," Supreme Knight Carl A.
Anderson said. "It is also a welcome reversal of the Ninth Circuit's
2002 decision in a similar case that was ultimately thrown out by the
Supreme Court on technical grounds. Today, the Court got it
absolutely right: recitation of the Pledge is a patriotic exercise,
not a religious prayer. Best of all, the Court said that the words
'under God' add a 'note of importance which a Pledge to our Nation
ought to have and which in our culture ceremonial references to God
arouse.' Every reasonable person knows that, and today's decision is
a breath of fresh air from a court system that has too often seemed
to be almost allergic to public references to God. This is a very
good day for America," Anderson concluded.

In today's ruling, the Court noted that, "Among the 'self-evident
truths' the Framers believed was the concept that all people are
entitled to certain inalienable rights given to them by the 'Laws of
Nature and Nature's God' and that the purpose of government should be
to "secure those rights.'" Such beliefs provide the context in which
the words of the Pledge must be understood, the Court said.

The Knights of Columbus and several individual Knights and their
families were defendant-intervenors in the case, and the court's 2-1
decision incorporates many of the arguments presented to the Court by
the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a public interest law firm that
represented the Knights in the case. Oral arguments before the Ninth
Circuit panel had been heard in December 2007. Other defendants in
the case included the United States government and a Sacramento-area
school district.

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March 11, 2010

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