Pledge Case Resources

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has put together a collection of "resources" -- including many of the relevant briefs -- relating to the Newdow case (a.k.a the "Pledge case") that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this Term. One brief in particular might be of interest to Mirror of Justice readers. In a brief filed by the Christian Legal Society, the argument is advanced that the use of the term "Under God" in the Pledge is not an unconstitutional "establishment" of religion but is rather an "affirm[ation] of this Country's system of limited government." "This country's founders," CLS contends, "grounded limited government in the proposition that inalienable rights come from God." Professor Thomas Berg, of the University of St. Thomas, has developed this article in detail in a recent article published in the Texas Review of Law and Politics, "The Pledge of Allegiance and the Limited State "(Vol. 8, No. 1, Fall 2003). The brief, and the article, are worth a read.

Rick