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New York Times, 2004-03-26
Op-Ed article seeks to put into context of Supreme Court case on Pledge of Allegiance why men
who wrote Constitution omitted any references to God; explores private faith of several participants in
Constitutional Convention and says concept they all embraced was freedom to practice religion, as well as not to;
says Michael Newdow's fight to eliminate "under God" from Pledge would be cheered by them.
When Michael Newdow stood before the Supreme Court on Wednesday and made the case for atheism, he probably didn't win many converts. But his quixotic crusade to rid the Pledge of Allegiance of the words "under God" is a peculiarly American act of courage. And somewhere the spirits of Jefferson, Madison and Franklin may well be smiling.
...
The Constitution is the creation of "we, the people" and never mentions a deity aside from the pro forma phrase "in the year of our Lord." The men who wrote the Constitution labored for months. There's little chance that they simply forgot to mention a higher power. So what were they thinking?
...
...Jefferson...inveighed against "every form of tyranny over the mind of man," by which he meant organized religion. In 1786, his Statute for Religious Freedom was approved by the Virginia Legislature through the efforts of James Madison, a chief architect of the Constitution and later an opponent of the practice of paying a Congressional chaplain. This statute guaranteed every Virginian the freedom to worship in the church of his choice and ended state support of the Anglican Church.
But more important than the founders's private faith was the concept that they all embraced passionately: the freedom to practice religion, as well as not to. They had risked their lives to free America from a country with an official religion and a king who claimed a divine right. They believed that government's purpose was to protect people's earthly rights, not their heavenly fates....
It was this concept -- that the government should neither enforce, encourage or otherwise intrude on religion -- that found its way into the godless Constitution in the form of the First Amendment....
See also:
New York Times, 2004-03-25
Washington, March 24 -- Michael A. Newdow stood before the justices of the Supreme Court on Wednesday, pointed to one of
the courtroom's two American flags and declared: "I am an atheist. I don't believe in God." With passion and
precision, he then proceeded to argue his own case for why the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in his daughter's
public school classroom violates the Constitution as long as the pledge contains the words "under God."
...Dr. Newdow engaged in repartee that, while never disrespectful, bore a closer resemblance to dinner-table one-upmanship
than to formal courtroom discourse. For example, when Dr. Newdow described "under God" as a divisive addition to
the pledge, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist asked him what the vote in Congress had been 50 years ago when the phrase was
inserted.
The vote was unanimous, Dr. Newdow said.
"Well, that doesn't sound divisive," the chief justice observed.
Dr. Newdow shot back, "That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office."
...
Earlier, Dr. Newdow responded to Justice Stephen G. Breyer's suggestion that "under God" had acquired such a
broad meaning and "civic context" that "it's meant to include virtually everybody, and the few whom it
doesn't include don't have to take the pledge."
"I don't think that I can include 'under God' to mean 'no God,' " Dr. Newdow replied. "I deny the
existence of God." He added, "Government needs to stay out of this business altogether."
The current Pledge of Allegiance was defended by Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and by Terence J. Cassidy, the lawyer
for the Elk Grove school district in California where Dr. Newdow's daughter attends elementary school.
...
In 1943, 11 years before Congress added "under God," the court ruled that no one could be compelled to say
the Pledge of Allegiance. That case was brought by Jehovah's Witnesses, whose religion forbids saluting the flag. Dr. Newdow
said opting out was a "huge imposition to put on a small child." He continued: "Government is doing this
to my child. They're putting her in a milieu where she says, 'Hey, the government is saying that there is a God and my dad
says no,' and that's an injury to me."
See also:
"Life Sustaining Treatments and Vegetative State: Scientific Advances and Ethical Dilemmas", 2004-03-17
Pope John Paul II declares that persons in a persistent vegetative state should be kept alive indefinitely.
Otherwise, there is "euthanasia by omission".
...the administration of water and food, even when provided by artificial means, always represents a natural means of preserving life, not a medical act. Its use, furthermore, should be considered, in principle, ordinary and proportionate, and as such morally obligatory... The evaluation of probabilities, founded on waning hopes for recovery when the vegetative state is prolonged beyond a year, cannot ethically justify the cessation or interruption of minimal care for the patient including nutrition and hydration.
Webmaster's comment:
The pope's position is a violation of the principle of patient autonomy.
If an individual has previously declared his/her desire not to be maintained in a persistent vegetative state
when all hope of recovery is gone, then that decision must be respected.
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