Knights petition appeals court to overturn latest pledge ruling

Published: 2006-06-07

SAN FRANCISCO (CNS) -- The Knights of Columbus filed a brief asking a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reject the latest effort by a California atheist and several other parents to have the Pledge of Allegiance declared unconstitutional because it contains the words "under God." In a friend-of-the-court, or amicus, brief filed in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in early June, the Knights asked the court to reverse a lower court that said it is unconstitutional to include "under God" in a pledge that minor students are required to recite in school. The brief was filed by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on behalf of the Knights. Joining in the brief were six individual Knights and their families. The Supreme Court in 2004 threw out a similar challenge by Michael Newdow, filed on behalf of his school-age daughter. Newdow was among plaintiffs in a new lawsuit against various government entities and schools filed the next year. But he and most of the other plaintiffs ultimately were either dropped from the suit or dismissed by the U.S. District Court.. The remaining plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Rio Linda Union School District outside Sacramento are an unnamed woman and her child.

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