Speak for yourself. (Scan).(controversy over Pledge of Allegiance)(Brief Article)

If Michael Newdow has his way, students in schools on the Left Coast may have a new Pledge of Allegiance when the next school year begins. Or no Pledge at all. The Sacramento atheist claims that his daughter experienced "discomfort" due to having to recite the Pledge, which has included the words "under God" since 1954. California's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals apparently agreed that this was too much for a student to handle and on June 26 ruled the inclusion of the phrase in the Pledge un-Constitutional.

To date, it is unclear which is more ludicrous: a grown man with a law degree who used his eight-year-old daughter as an excuse to make a federal case out of his anti-religious preferences, or the two judges who ruled that "the mere fact that a pupil is required to listen every day to the statement, `one nation under God,' has a coercive effect" (emphasis added).

Meanwhile, the girl's mother issued a public statement on July 11 declaring that she and her daughter are practicing Christians and that her daughter does indeed wish to recite the Pledge with the words "under God."

Sandra Banning--who has custody of her daughter--has hired an attorney to file a brief that would allow her to become a party in the case and thereby inform the court of her daughter's religious status.

The ruling is on hold for now. The U.S. Justice Department, the state of California, ...