Peakah's Provocations...

Here we go again...

Michael Newdow is at it again with a zealous fervor to have anything referring to God removed from the public eye. His first go-round was dropped by the Supreme Court because he wasn't his child's official guardian. How courageous of you Supremes. Newdow recruited two other 'parents' to push the issue for him. Now round 2 begins with Newdow as the early winner. The Supremes are going to have to deal with this issue once and for all in the near future.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional, a federal court judge ruled today, saying that the pledge’s reference to “under God” violated school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”

The suit is the second by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, who has been trying for five years to remove the pledge from public classrooms.

The Washington, D.C.-based Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a party to the case, immediately announced that it would appeal the decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

That court already ruled in favor of Newdow’s cause in 2002, but the case was later dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In deciding the current case, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento said he was bound by the Court of Appeals’ previous decision.

Karlton said he would sign a restraining order prohibiting the recitation of the pledge at Elk Grove Unified, Rio Linda and Elverta Joint Elementary school districts, where the children of Newdow and his fellow plaintiffs are enrolled.

Does anyone else see the involvement of Rio Linda as ironic as I do?

I've said pretty much all I had to say on this issue in one of my previous posts...
Linked with MVRWC's One step closer...
and Basil's Breakfast.