I can’t believe the POA lawsuit has made it all the way to the Supreme Court. What a waste of tax payer money.
The whole lawsuit rests on the fact that Michael Newdow claims that his daughter was injured by reciting the pledge.
Newdow does not allege that his daughter’s teacher or school district requires his daughter to participate in reciting the Pledge. Rather, he claims that his daughter is injured when she is 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, and that our’s is ‘one nation under God.'”
Source: 9th Circuit Pledge of Allegiance ruling
However, it’s been shown that the daughter never even complained to have been injured. She recited it from her own volition and continues to do so to this day. Futhermore, she is a Christian and the only one that was hurt was Michael Newdow himself.
Secondly, he doesn’t even have legal custody of his daughter. She was born out of wedlock and he never married his daughter’s mother, Sandra Banning.
Thirdly, he is only trying to push his own agenda. As founder of the First Amendmist Church of True Science (FACTS), his goal is simply to remove God from society. He has used his daughter under false pretenses to further his goals.
Links:
POA Resources
Pledge Case Timeline
Custody case colors Pledge battle
Side issue complicates father’s suit over pledge
Court Takes Up ‘Under God’ in Pledge
Letter from Dr Newdow
Litigant explains why he brought Pledge suit
Michael Newdow
Court refuses to reconsider Pledge ruling
Pledge mom fights
to keep ‘under God’
9th Circuit Pledge of Allegience ruling
Parents’ Pledge Of Allegiance Feud
POA Timeline