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Yahoo! News, 2002-06-26
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - For the first time ever, a federal appeals court declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional Wednesday because of the words "under God" added by Congress in 1954.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the phrase amounts to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the Constitution's Establishment Clause, which requires a separation of church and state.
...
The case was brought by Michael A. Newdow, a Sacramento atheist who objected because his second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge at the Elk Grove school district...
"I'm an American citizen. I don't like my rights infringed upon by my government," he said in an interview. Newdow called the pledge a "religious idea that certain people don't agree with."
...the appeals court said that an atheist or a holder of certain non-Judeo-Christian beliefs could see it as an attempt to "enforce a religious orthodoxy of monotheism."
See also:
Webmaster's comment:
A very good decision, a just and necessary application of the principle of church-state separation.
Unfortunately, it will probably be overturned on appeal.
See also the Reuters story, just below.
Reuters, 2002-06-26
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A federal appeals court found the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional on Wednesday, saying it was illegal to ask U.S. schoolchildren to vow fealty to one nation "under God."
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned a 1954 Act of Congress that added "under God" to the pledge, saying the words violated the basic Constitutional tenet of separation of church and state.
"The text of the official Pledge, codified in federal law, impermissibly takes a position with respect to the purely religious question of the existence and identity of God," the court's three judge panel wrote.
New York Times, 2002-06-19
Paul Kurtz, publisher of the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, is turning his attention to the proliferation of the paranormal in movies and on television.
These are some of the things that Paul Kurtz, chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)
and publisher of the magazine Skeptical Inquirer, does not believe in: parapsychology, holistic cures for animal illnesses,
the universal effectiveness of chiropractic, extraterrestrial beings, alternative medicine, Bigfoot and organized religion.
For 35 years Mr. Kurtz has kept up a drumbeat of opposition to all kinds of this nonsense, as he calls it. And now he is turning
his attention to the proliferation of the paranormal in movies and on television. Although movies are obviously fiction, Mr. Kurtz
said, their power and influence are enormous. Meanwhile some television shows are presenting extraterrestrial conversations as a real thing.
"The television networks are selling communication with the dead with abandon," Mr. Kurtz complained as he sat in the headquarters
of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y., near Buffalo, the secular humanist organization that is the umbrella group for all his interests.
...
The March-April issue of the Skeptical Inquirer, for instance, gave a special "Foot in Mouth Disease Award" to the
Rev. Jerry Falwell for holding pagans, abortionists and feminists partly responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
And to another minister, Jack Brock, and the Christ Community Church of Alamogordo, N.M., the magazine gave a Pagan
Pride Award for sponsoring "a Harry Potter book burning."
...
The struggle against organized religion is lonely. Religion exerts a tyranny over society, he said, and for an American
politician "the worst crime is to be an agnostic." In France, François Mitterrand and former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin
reported they were agnostics. "They could not get away with that here."
He added: "Years ago you never met anyone who believed in Satan. Now it's common." By his count there are "1,350 cults
and sects in the United States, from the Church of Scientology to Hasidic Judaism," he said, speaking of offshoots of
mainstream religions.
...
Not only does mainstream religion constitute a tyranny, but beliefs like "Astrology and U.F.O.-ology have become major
religions of our day," he said.
...
He concluded, "Islam and Judaism and Christianity are false."
Webmaster's comment:
See also the web sites of
CSICOP,
Skeptical Inquirer,
Council for Secular Humanism (CSH) and
Free Inquiry.
HA'ARETZ Daily — Israel, English edition, 2002-06-12
Jerusalem's first Gay Pride parade took place on Friday without disturbance after ultra-Orthodox groups decided not to do anything that would heighten media attention to the event. None of the dozens of colorful flags the municipality hung for the event were destroyed overnight and even the graffiti calling for the expulsion (gerush) of gays was "edited" by an anonymous graffiti artist to call for marriage and divorce (gerushim) rights for homosexuals and lesbians.
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