I Pledge Allegiance to the Flag, The Californian Law (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
I Pledge Alliance to the Flag
The Californian Law requires every public elementary school to begin each day with legal patriotic practices. The Elk school district happens to be one of the elementary schools and therefore implemented the law requirements by making the students to voluntary recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag once in each day (Prouser, 2005). The case law also allows students who object for religious reasons to abstain from the recitation (Russo, 2004).
A Sacramento in California filed, Michael Newdow filed a suit in 2000 on behalf of his daughter against the Elk Grove Unified school district. In the case, Newdow claimed that the use of the words “under God” in the American pledge of allegiance violated the constitutional provision on religion by preventing him from inculcating his daughter in his beliefs. He based his argument on the establishment clause which stands against forcing someone to accept a belief, entangling religion with government, hindering or endorsing religion (Russo, 2004). By doing that, Michael challenged both the school district policy and the congress act in which more than one hundred and fifty congress members voted for and recited the pledge of allegiance with the words “under God” when it was first introduced in 1954 (Russo, 2004). The Pledge was found constitutional by Judge Peter Nowinski of U.S. magistrate court. The case was then dismissed on 21st June 2000 after which Michael appealed.
In the second review of the case, a three-judge panel handling the case found out that Michael had a standing in controlling the religious life of his daughter. Therefore, judge Alfred Goodwin and Judge Ferdinand Fernandez wrote the majority opinion with partial concurrence and partial dissent respectively (Russo, 2004). The application of Lemon, Coercion and Endorsement tests by the court led to the decision that the recitation of the pledge of allegiance with the words “under God” led to the violation of the Establishment Clause. The partial dissent of the case asserted that the religious content of words “under God” was very small that it should be classified as de minimis, trivial below judicial notice.
Sandra Banning Michael’s daughter filed a motion to dismiss Michael’s complaint based on the court order that gave her an exclusive legal custody on her daughter. The legal custody granted her the sole right to represent her daughter’s interests about her education and interests. She further stated that her daughter was a Christian and therefore had no problem whatsoever with reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with the words “under God” included (Russo, 2004). She insisted that the case might harm her daughter as people may incorrectly perceive her as sharing the religious atheist views of her father. Banning further insisted that she is the only legal custodian of her daughter’s interests and that her daughter was not willing to be part and parcel of Michael’s lawsuit. The entry of Banning into the case affected the standing of Michael in the case (Laycock, 2004)..
Michael objected Banning’s motion by claiming a legal parent interest that he still had over her daughter. He has the right to expose her daughter to his religious life even if they differed with that of her mother. Michael therefore continued with his search for a redress for the alleged injury on his interests as a parent. However, the court of appeal amended the opinion that had been made concerning Michael’s standing to challenge the congress act and the school policy (Russo, 2004).
The case was first filed at the Unite States district court where it was handled by a magistrate Peter Nowisnki. However, the case was dismissed when the judge declared the Pledge of Allegiance constitutional. Michael appealed taking the case to the United States courts of appeal where the case was heard in three sessions; June 26 and December 4 2002, and February 28, 2003 (Laycock, 2004).. In the court of appeal sessions, it was concluded that the words “under God” was meant to make reference to a Supreme Being characteristic of any religion. The Supreme Being in question would be Jesus, God, Vishnu, Zeus, or no god. It further noted that no profession would be neutral with respect to religion thus terming the Pledge of Allegiance accommodative of all religious views and not infringing on any religion (Laycock, 2004)..
The case was then dragged to the Supreme Court in March 24, 2004 and considered two questions; Michael’s standing to challenge the school policy where his daughter was schooling and whether the standing was offending to the constitutional amendment which introduced the words “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance (Prouser, 2005).
The Supreme Court through Justice John Paul established that Michael did not have enough standing to file the cas...