Chad

The dissenting judge in the pledge ruling argued that the addition of "under god" caused only a minimal negative impact on church-state separation. The same argument has been made to justify "In God We Trust" and, if I am not mistaken, the Ohio state motto. Since these exceptions are constantly used to justify further violations of the wall, how can any judge actually ever argue "de minimis?"

enemigo

I think that the rabid furor displayed immediately following this ruling is absolute proof that "under God" is not de minimis.

There is no way people would get this upset over "ceremonial deism."


richard

Bill Snedden

Very true. According to Black's Law Dictionary, the doctrine de minimis non curat lex holds that "the law does not care for, or take notice of, very small or trifling matters."

I wonder how many theists actually believe that their god is a small or trifling matter?

The argument is disingenous at best; downright deceitful at worst.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Splat

Excellent insight Bill. Thanks.

Alonzo Fyfe

I am wondering whether -- if the court were to decide that "under God" is de minimis -- if they would say the same thing about "indivisible" and "with liberty and justice for all."

It would seem to me that, since they all have equal standing in the Pledge, their levels of importance are also identical.

Shadowy Man

I don't think that it is actually the words "under God", and hence God itself, that they consider de minimis, as Bill was suggesting, I think it is more that they believe that since such a vast majority of Americans believe in a god even the idea that the words should be removed at all is so ridiculous as to not even be worth spending any time thinking about.

Hence, the leaders' reactions: "Just nuts." "Ridiculous", etc. They didn't need to argue on the merits of the legality, because in their eyes, it is so trivially true that it should be there that its constitutionality needn't even be considered.

As people tended to say "What's next? Taking "In God We Trust" off our money???"

[ July 03, 2002: Message edited by: shadowy_man ]</p>

Jamie_L

My thought in challenge to "under God" pledge supporters is this:

Why SHOULD "under God" be included in the pledge? What purpose does it serve that is so important that it must be defended as vigorously as it is?

I've only heard two possible responses:
1) "It's part of our heritage." Well, if we want to promote heritage, isn't the ORIGNIAL version, which lacks "under God", a more appropriate version for promoting history and heritage.
2) "We need to acknowledge God." In the context of a school-lead pledge, this amounts to saying "we need our schools to promote God." If you ask me, that's the very definition of a violation of the 1st Amendment's establishment clause. Furthermore, if we "need God", then God is hardly "de minimis".