America's pledge of allegiance in schools ruled out

A federal court sparked a massive debate across the United States yesterday by ruling that to ask schoolchildren to recite the pledge of allegiance swearing loyalty to "one nation under God" was unconstitutional.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California said asking children to swear such a pledge was the same as asking them to swear allegiance to a nation "under Zeus" or "under Vishnu". The 2-1 decision said it undermined the basic tenet of the constitution that demands a separation of church and state.

Judge Alfred Goodwin said: "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 ruling provoked fierce protests from Republicans and Democrats. George Bush's spokesman said the President considered the ruling ridiculous, and he added: "The Justice Department is looking how to seek redress."

The pledge, written in 1892, was first codified by Congress in 1942 as a patriotic statement that has been recited by generations of US schoolchildren as the first act of the school day. In 1954, Congress amended the official version of the pledge to add the words "under God".

Yesterday's ruling came as the appeal court overturned a lower court decision that dismissed a case against the pledge brought by the father of a schoolgirl from Sacramento. Michael Newdow, an atheist, said that while his daughter was not required to join classmates in reciting the pledge, she was nevertheless hurt by being compelled to "watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God".

Professor Vikram Amar, of the University of California's Hastings College of Law, said: "If [the ruling] survives and really does mean what it says, then arguably it could call into question a lot of other practices that we take for granted. I think there is a very good chance that the Supreme Court will be interested in this one."