Gay and lesbian rights in prom season have become a familiar fight for ALCU chapters all over the country. In the fall, the ACLU helped Alabama teenager Cynthia Stewart win permission to attend prom with her girlfriend after the school announced it would cancel the dance for everyone.  Sun said they get about five to 10 such complaints each year.

“It’s really that it’s becoming more and more of an issue because … there’s a lot more information out there for students so they know it’s their right to be treated equally,” she said. “Whereas before they thought, ‘Well prom isn’t for me because I’m gay.’”

The school board issued a statement announcing it wouldn’t host the event in Fulton, “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”  The statement didn’t mention McMillen or the ACLU. When asked by the AP if McMillen’s demand led to the cancellation, school board attorney Michele Floyd said she could only reference the statement.

“I guess they would rather do that than what’s right, what’s constitutionally correct,” McMillen said.

Same-sex prom dates and cross-dressing are new issues for many high schools around the country, said Daryl Presgraves, a spokesman for GLSEN: Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a Washington-based advocacy group.

A lot of schools actually react rather than do the research and find out what the rights of these students are,” said Presgraves, who was preparing to facilitate a discussion about anti-gay bullying at a National Association of Secondary School Principals meeting.

Attorney Griffith said the student’s rights were not violated.

“This is not an issue where anyone has been denied an education or suffered a constitutional deprivation,” he wrote in the filing. “Rather, this is a social event that, in light of rapidly escalating circumstances, was disruptive to the school environment because people are on all sides of the issue.”

An affidavit filed March 10 in support of the school board by attorney James Keith claimed school board members have been under “tremendous pressure” as a result of the controversy.

“The school board was caught in a no-win situation as this matter developed,” Keith wrote. “One board member received threats at his place of employment because of the stance he had taken on the matter. Board members have received emails, telephone calls and Facebook messages regarding this matter.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Christine Sun called the argument “preposterous.”

“Long before this became an issue in the media they had told Constance that she could not bring her girlfriend to the prom,” she said. “Really it was the school board’s decision to cancel the prom that became the big news story.”

While the demand letter from the ACLU drew some media attention, including an article by the Associated Press, the story spread internationally when the school board announced it would call off the dance. Since then, McMillen has appeared on numerous television shows to tell her story, including an appearance March 19 on the nationally syndicated “Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

The school board’s response states that parents have organized a private prom at a furniture mart in nearby Tupleo. Now that the school district has withdrawn from the event, any constitutional claims are irrelevant, Griffith wrote.  Sun said she had only heard rumors of the private dance until she read it in the brief.

“Constance has not been invited, so it is clear to me that what is happening is that the school has encouraged a private prom that is not open to all the students,” she said. “That’s what Constance is fighting for — a prom where everyone can go.”

On one discussion on an Internet bulletin board about the planned prom in Tupelo, a poster who identified himself as a junior at the high school said the prom would be “invitation only.”

“Constance and her gay-activist friends will not be attending,” he said. “They can go have their own prom because we certainly do not want any of them there.”

The poster expressed frustration at the attention the issue had brought to the city of about 4,000.

“We have (television) newsmen at front doors of the school every freaking morning,” he wrote. “They flag us down to interview us as we’re coming and leaving school. I’m sick and tired of it. We are very traditional here so, personally, I think if Constance doesn’t like it here, she needs to pack her stuff and move. No one even liked her here that much in the first place.”

However, McMillen is receiving accolades outside her hometown for her stance.

DeGeneres called McMillen part of a new generation of leaders for her stand for gay rights and presented her with a $30,000 college scholarship check from website Tonic.com.  DeGeneres, who is gay, had McMillen as a guest on her syndicated show, which aired today.

“I admire you so much,” she told the 18-year-old senior from Itawamba Agricultural High School. “When I was your age I never would have had the strength to do what you are doing.”

Tonic.com also offered McMillen a summer internship in New York City, DeGeneres said.

Something good has come from the bonfire that the issue has set ablaze.  The dance has been organized by the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, but no details have been released yet.  Tonic.com has agreed to raise money for a second chance prom for the Mississippi students that would include gays and lesbians.

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My Take: Homophobia!  According to Wikipedia, this is a term for a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality  and people identified or perceived as being homosexual. Definitions of the term refer variably to antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, and irrational fear. Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of a non-heterosexual orientation.  This definition seems to fit the school board and parents of this community.

It seems to me that the parents of these teenagers should be more worried about their garage flooring than who will be attending the prom.  Yet their fellow students of McMillen have no problem with her sexual orientation, neither should the parent or the school board.  I can understand the dress code because of tradition, a tradition can be changed just like a garage floor mat can be changed.  But you can never replace the experience of going to a prom.

That experience is something everybody should have and it does not compare to getting Bon Jovi tickets.  I know parents can be obnoxious in getting their sport tickets for a high school football game, but interfering with the prom is ridiculous.

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A Mississippi high school senior has filed suit to get the school’s prom reinstated after officials canceled it because the young woman, an open lesbian, asked to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.

The lawsuit, filed March 11 in U.S. District Court, charges that 18-year-old Constance McMillen’s free speech rights were violated when school officials told her they would be enforcing the district’s policy that prom dates must be of “opposite sex.”

McMillen is dating a sophomore girl at the school. She requested permission from the school’s principal and the superintendent not only to bring her girlfriend, but to wear a tuxedo.

She was told, according to the lawsuit, that the pair would have to arrive separately and could be thrown out “if any of the other students complained about their presence there together.” McMillen was also told she could not wear a tuxedo, according to the suit, because boys are to attend in tuxedos and girls in dresses.

On March 10, after the American Civil Liberties Union told the school board that banning same-sex dates violated the students’ rights, the district canceled the April 2 prom for the entire school.

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In a statement issued March 11 by the Itawamba County Board of Education, school officials said the prom was canceled after consideration for the “education, safety and well-being” of the students and that they hoped “private citizens” would take it upon themselves to throw the students a prom.  McMillen was not named in the statement, but the statement said the decision to cancel the prom was “due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events.”

The lawsuit — which also names Principal Trae Wiygul, Assistanct Principal Rick Mitchell and Superintendent Theresa McNeece — requests not only that the prom be reinstated and the opposite-sex date policy be lifted, but that female students be allowed to wear tuxedos and that the school district admit its policies restricted its students’ freedom of expression.

“We certainly want a declaration that what the school district did was unconstitutional,” Sun said, adding that the ACLU is planning to file an emergency motion to get the matter resolved in time for the prom to be reinstated.

An attorney for the Itawamba County School District said in a U.S. District Court filing late March 19 that the school board decided to call off the high school prom to settle the “very explosive and disruptive issue” of the district’s ban on same-sex dates.

Itawamba Agricultural High School senior Constance McMillen “wishes to make the defendant district the site for a national constitutional argument over gay and lesbian rights” is according to the filing by school board attorney Benjamin Griffith.

Continued in “Prom Canceled Because of Sexuality Part 2″

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My Take: Homophobia!  It seems that it is rampant in Mississippi.  Do people actually believe that being around a gay or lesbian that it will rub off on them or someone else?  They are human beings too!  What happens behind closed doors is nobody’s business.  If this young lady was working in a similar situation arose, she could easily hire a NY employment discrimination lawyer and get it resolved.  But, it seems to education board is in more need of Nassau County harassment attorneys.

On the other hand, there is one point I can partially agree with.  That is the dress code.  It is tradition for the guy to wear a tuxedo and the girl to wear a formal dress.  I am big on keeping up with tradition.  I think there could’ve been a compromise if McMillen would have agreed to wearing a floral dress instead of a tuxedo.  Then again, many schools have done away with this tradition and allow the students to wear what they like.

At some schools, guys are allowed to wear designer jeans like Mek denim jeans and the girls can wear something from Hause of Howe Clothing.  So I guess it’s just a matter of who is willing to give a little bit to reach a compromise.  However, it seems that the parents have taken matters into their own hands.  They have organized a private, by invitation only, prom and have not invited McMillen former girlfriend.

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The father of a 12-year-old Pennsylvania boy charged last year with murder says his son is “just an all-around good kid” who doesn’t deserve to face life in prison.

A judge will soon decide whether or not Jordan Brown should be tried as an adult for the murder of his soon-to-be stepmother, and face a possible life sentence. The case is at the crux of a national debate on juvenile justice, playing out in a small-town courthouse.

Before his arrest, Jordan was the quarterback of the Pee Wee football team and a good student. His dad says he was “big into sports” with “a lot of friends in school.”

But on Feb. 20, 2009, his father’s fiancée, Kenzie Houk, 26, was found dead, shot in the head in the family’s rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania. She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time.

Prosecutors quickly built a case against Jordan, then 11, accusing him of using his shotgun — a hunting gift from his dad — to fire one fatal bullet before getting on the bus for elementary school. Within 24 hours, the fifth-grader was arrested for murder.

When Chris Brown saw his son being taken away by police, the boy was “scared, frightened, [and] crying.”

“Jordan’s never been away from me for any length of time since he was born,” he recalled thinking. “He was terrified, terrified.”

Brown said his son “looked like a baby” when he was incarcerated. “He looked like a baby in an orange jumpsuit in an adult jail.”

Brown continues to proclaim his son’s innocence. But the family of Houk has reportedly described Jordan as angry and profoundly jealous of the fact that the new woman in his father’s life was about to have a son, to be named Chris after his dad.

Jordan was charged with two counts of homicide. Chris Brown believes his son comprehends what he stands accused of, “but he doesn’t appreciate the magnitude of it. He’s simply too young.”

Too young, many argue, to face the prospect of an adult sentence. Kids charged with murder in Pennsylvania are automatically considered adults and only a judge’s decision can move the trial to juvenile court.

If convicted, the two routes have radically different sentences, either life in prison without parole, or juvenile detention and freedom with no record at age 21.

Due to tough-on-crime laws, Pennsylvania has more juveniles sentenced to life in prison without parole than any other state.

“I’m not sure that we think they should be treated like adults,” said Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University. “What I think it is, is what they’ve done is so heinous, we’re troubled with the idea of treating them just like they are a kid.”

And yet, his dad argues that Jordan is just that: a kid, one who enjoys Harry Potter and, until recently, wasn’t completely sure if Santa exists. What’s more, children’s brains, according to recent research, are not fully developed, which affects risk-taking and impulse control. It’s that kind of research that influenced a Supreme Court case banning the death penalty for juveniles in 2005.

“In the juvenile vs. adult system, it is the individual and whether that person is amenable to juvenile rehabilitation,” said Dennis Elisco, Jordan’s defense attorney. “And in Jordan’s case, he’s clearly amenable to juvenile rehabilitation, because of his lack of history of any problems, any juvenile delinquency.”

If tried in adult court and found guilty, Jordan would become the youngest person in U.S. history to face life in prison without parole.

Whether or not Jordan gets a shot at rehabilitation is up to the judge. If the judge rules that Jordan should be tried as a juvenile, his father said he would be “obviously happy that that’s the outcome. But then, you know, we still have to prove his innocence at the trial.”

Jordan has spent roughly a year in juvenile detention.

His father, who is no longer able to work in construction, has drained his life savings, spending $900 a month on gas to make the daily four-hour round trip to visit his son.

“[We] play games, play cards, put together puzzles,” Brown said. “We’ve probably done 35, 40 puzzles over the past year.”

Brown has already lost so much: his fiancée, his unborn child, his home, and now perhaps his son, for life. He knows that he should have a wife and kids, but instead, he is alone.

When asked how he keeps his spirits up, he said, “I have no choice. I have to stay strong for my son.”

Family Friend Says Jordan Fit in Well

One community member said it’s inconceivable that Jordan could be charged as an adult.

Chris Lindsay’s son played football with Jordan, and Lindsay knew Jordan and Chris Brown well. He told “Good Morning America” that the Brown family was “very happy” and that Jordan was looking forward to the baby’s birth.

“Jordan had actually commented … he was very much looking forward to the birth of his brother,” Lindsay said.  Lindsay said Jordan was a good child who fit in well.  “I mean, he’s probably one of the best behaved children I’ve ever met in my life, very respectful,” he said.

In an attempt to build awareness about the case, Jordan’s supporters have launched a Web site to maintain the boy’s innocence and solicit contributions to pay for his defense.

A Pennsylvania judge is hearing evidence on whether to try Jordan Brown, 12, as adult in death of his father’s pregnant fiancée.  When he allegedly shot 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Hauk Jordan was 11 living with her and his father in their New Galilee farmhouse in February of 2009

A defense psychologist testified last month that an adolescent’s brain does not control impulses in a “mature way.”  A prosecution psychologist who examined Brown is scheduled to testify Friday in front of Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto.

Lawrence County Judge Dominick Motto gave both sides a week to submit written arguments. Motto must rule within 20 days — otherwise Brown will remain in adult court by default — making the deadline April 1.

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My Take: My question is if the fiancée’s ex-boyfriend boasted that he killed her, why didn’t the police investigate it?  Nothing I have read says that they did only that he had an alibi.  I would want to know how good his alibi is.  As to the point of whether a 12-year-old should be tried as an adult, it depends on the 12-year-old.  Some 12-year-olds actually need Lehigh County PA criminal attorneys.

Other 12-year-olds need a Lehigh County PA juvenile law attorney because they are and not even close to being an adult.  Some 12-year-olds know what’s going on as well as an adult would.  They usually call this “street smart”, which makes a child more mature.  Even so, they may still need criminal attorneys.

I believe that he should be tried as a juvenile and I base that decision on everything I have read and seen on TV.  It is a known fact that children get jealous when a parent remarries and has additional has additional children.  It is a natural event in that kind of a situation.  I cannot say whether he committed the murder or not.  There are only two people who know who committed the crime and that is Kenzie and the person who shot her.

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Apocalyptic visions supposedly caused a New Jersey man to terrorize his family, impregnating his 3 of his 5 daughters, eat his children with boards as well as moving to avoid child protective services.  He apparently impregnated 3 of his daughters to create a “pure” family.

The nightmarish picture of a family subjected to more than a decade of threats and violence and largely cut off from the outside world is emerging in a state courthouse where prosecutors are preparing to have the man stand trial five times, one per child victim.

As the first case nears trial, questions have been raised about whether state authorities could have put a stop to the abuse sooner. Some of the crimes are alleged to have occurred while the family was under scrutiny by the state child welfare agency, and after the father had been arrested and pleaded guilty to assault and child endangerment.

At a hearing last week, the 51-year-old man’s former wife described in a calm voice her marriage to a man whose visions she said drove him to try to create “pure” family bloodlines by impregnating several of his teenage daughters.

“He said the world was going to end and it was just going to be him and his offspring and that he was chosen,” the woman testified.

Arrested in 2006, he stands accused of raping five of his daughters, three of whom are believed to have given birth to a total of six children. He is being held on $1 million bond.

Having been ruled competent to stand trial earlier this year, he faces 27 charges including aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, lewdness, child endangerment, aggravated criminal sexual contact and criminal sexual contact.

“We plan to proceed with all five trials if necessary,” said Lisa Squitieri, the Passaic County prosecutor handling the case.

Authorities say the assaults began in the mid-1980s and lasted until 2002, when the parents separated, and occurred at residences in Paterson, East Orange, Orange and Eatontown. The time period overlaps with the family’s coming to the attention of the state’s child welfare agency.

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According to court records and published reports, the girls’ father was arrested in 2000 and charged with kidnapping for allegedly trying to take three of his children from state custody at a Monmouth County medical center. He posted bail and later pleaded guilty to assault and child endangerment and was sentenced to a year’s probation.

Prosecutors in Passaic County say one of the daughters, then in her early teens, was raped as late as January 2002.

New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services declined to comment, citing confidentiality requirements.

But the man’s wife and one of his daughters testified that the agency had indeed removed at least one of the children from the family’s home, and that the family had temporarily moved, first to Jersey City and then to Florida, to avoid the agency’s investigation.

Prosecutors in Monmouth County, where the charges in the kidnapping case were brought, did not return phone messages.

In her testimony, his daughter described experiencing and witnessing beatings administered with wooden boards and steel-toed boots. She said minor transgressions often were punished by the withholding of food.

The girl’s mother testified some of the babies were delivered at home and never received birth certificates, and said in at least two instances babies who died in the home were buried without authorities being notified.

The children were home-schooled, she said, and were discouraged from interacting with other kids.

“No one really asked questions of each other because somebody would tell on somebody and somebody would get in trouble,” she said.

Even after she became aware of sexual abuse, she said she was too frightened to confront him.

“I was afraid to ever accuse him of being demented, or being a pedophile. I knew the word but I wouldn’t dare use it because it would result in a beating,” she said. “I’m sure my not standing up to him didn’t help the kids. They felt disempowered also. There was just a lot of fear. Everybody was threatened.”

Daryl Pennington, an attorney representing the defendant, did not return messages seeking comment.

Attorneys were back in court on March 12, when state Superior Court Judge Raymond Reddin ruled on the admissibility of the wife’s and daughter’s testimony. The state last week asked state Superior Court Judge Raymond A. Reddin in Paterson to, at the very least, allow Ayinde’s wife and a daughter to testify at trial about alleged brutal beatings and death threats Ayinde made to the entire family. The state also wanted testimony permitted about how Ayinde kept his wife and daughters away from doctors, home schooled them and cut them off from the outside world to keep the family secret from surfacing. Judge Reddin agreed Friday that such testimony is allowed in the first trial, to establish the state’s premise that the victim was mentally and physically beaten into submission.

The judge stopped short of allowing the state to introduce as part of its case any testimony about the other alleged rapes within the family unless the defense, for some reason, “opens the door to its admissibility” during trial, Reddin ruled. The first trial is scheduled to begin in April.

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My Take: One Noah is enough!  Besides, Noah was never asked to be brutal to his family or to impregnate his daughters, which he did not have.  His sons had wives and children of their own.  This guy is clearly insane.  This is what we need to criminal attorney!

I suppose you could say that the man actually needs an Ottawa fraud attorney because he is pretending to be someone he is not.  Seriously though, he needs to contact a Brockville criminal lawyer.

I do feel for his family though.  I think his wife needs to contact the New Jersey divorce attorney as soon as possible.  I doubt that she will have the need of a New Jersey alimony lawyer since he will probably be in jail for very long time.  His daughters might actually need a juvenile defense law firm to help them through this, even though they may not have committed a crime.

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The Internet is buzzing about Megan Barnes as “Public Enemy” in Florida.  Others are joking about her “razor sharp focus” and she drives her car.  However, the 37-year-old was thrust into the limelight for allegedly multitasking while driving.  This has earned her a place on hundreds of websites with her mug shot.

According to a startled Florida Highway Patrol trooper, Barnes was shaving her bikini area while driving south on the famed Overseas Highway when she crashed into the rear of an SUV March 2.

‘If I Wasn’t There, I Wouldn’t Have Believed It’

In the police report obtained by ABC News, the trim job was apparently essential because the arresting officer, trooper Gary Dunick, said the Indiana native told him she was heading to Key West to visit her boyfriend.

“She said she was meeting her boyfriend in Key West and wanted to be ready for the visit,” Dunick told the Key West Citizen.

It gets weirder. In order to pay full attention to her sensitive regions, police say Barnes enlisted her ex-husband, Charles Judy, who was riding shotgun, to hold the wheel.  Yes, her ex-husband.

Their tag-team driving went awry when an SUV driving in front of them slowed to turn. Barnes’ 1995 Thunderbird smashed into it. Two of the SUV’s passengers suffered minor injuries, police say. Barnes shouldn’t have been driving that Thunderbird, since she had been convicted the previous day for driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license.  According to the arrest report, it was the sixth time her license had been suspended.

After the accident, Barnes and Judy drove off, police say. The Thunderbird limped a few hundred yards before the couple switched seats. “She jumps in the back seat and he moves over,” Dunick told the Citizen. “It was like the old comedy bit, ‘Who’s on first?’”

But the attempt to claim that Judy, not Barnes, was driving was also doomed. Judy had visible burns on his chest he claimed came from the exploding airbag, but only the passenger side airbag deployed, according to the police report.

Patrol officers say they determined that in addition to this bit of “landscaping” behind the wheel, Barnes was already driving with a suspended license, just one day after she was convicted of driving under the influence.   So Dunick charged Barnes with driving with a revoked license, reckless driving, leaving the scene of an accident with injuries and driving with no insurance. Judy was not charged.

According to the arrest affidavit, the trooper asked her afterward why she didn’t hit the brakes when she saw the SUV. She answered bluntly, “I told you, I was shaving.”

“If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Dunick told the Citizen.

“About 10 years ago, I stopped a guy in the exact same spot… who had three or four syringes sticking out of his arm. It was just surreal and I thought, ‘Nothing will ever beat this.’ Well, this takes it.”

Now, for her apparent adventure with blade in hand, throw in charges of reckless driving, driving with a revoked license, leaving the scene of a crash with injuries, and driving without insurance. The good news, nobody was seriously hurt.

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My Take: Can this world get any weirder?  Well, how about Australian souvenirs from France?  Or what about yacht charters in Tahiti.  Yes, I know, I am being ridiculous.  But it just seems to me a little bit ridiculous to shave your bikini area while you are driving.  How stupid is this woman?  And saying she is blonde is no excuse!

And you will never get Australian boomerangs in France unless you get them from a specialty shop.  You also never get a Greece yacht charter in Tahiti; you might get a Tahiti yacht charter.  I just hope she uses organic or natural beauty products, because her mug shot does not look that great.  Maybe she should have just taken a nice long hot bath with natural aromatherapy and then her shaving before she left home.

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The use of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” on US currency have been found to be constitutional and not a violation of the separation of church and state.  The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco rejected two legal challenges by Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow, who claimed the references to God disrespect his religious beliefs.

“The Pledge is constitutional,” Judge Carlos Bea wrote for the majority in the 2-1 ruling. “The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon, which our Republic was founded.”

The same appeals court caused a national uproar and prompted accusations of judicial activism when it decided in Newdow’s favor in 2002, ruling that the pledge violated the First Amendment prohibition against government endorsement of religion.

The same court ruled in Newdow’s favor in 2002 after he sued his daughter’s school district for forcing students to recite the pledge.

President George W. Bush called the 2002 decision “ridiculous,” senators passed a resolution condemning the ruling and Newdow received death threats.

That lawsuit reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2004, but the high court said Newdow lacked the legal standing to file the suit because he didn’t have custody of his daughter, on whose behalf he brought the case.

Bea noted that schools do not require students to recite the pledge, which was amended to include the words “under God” by a 1954 federal law. Members of Congress at the time said they wanted to set the United States apart from “godless communists.”

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, who was part of the three-judge panel that ruled in Newdow’s favor eight years ago, wrote a 123-page dissent to the 60-page majority opinion.

“Under no sound legal analysis adhering to binding Supreme Court precedent could this court uphold state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitation of the ‘under God’ version of the Pledge of Allegiance by children in public schools,” wrote Reinhardt, who was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980.

So Newdow, who is a doctor and lawyer, filed the challenge on behalf of other parents who objected to their children being required to recite the pledge. In 2005, a federal judge in Sacramento decided in Newdow’s favor, ruling that the pledge was unconstitutional.

“I want to be treated equally,” Newdow said when he argued the case before the 9th Circuit in December 2007. He added that supporters of the phrase “want to have their religious views espoused by the government.”

In a separate 3-0 ruling March 18, the appeals court upheld the inscription of the national motto “In God We Trust” on coins and currency.

“The whole argument that ‘under God’ wasn’t placed into the pledge for religious purposes is bogus,” Newdow said. “I hope people recognize this is not against God or people who believe in God. It’s about the government not treating people equally on the basis of their lawful religious views.”

Newdow said he isn’t optimistic the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case because the justices will likely be reluctant to hear a case that could invalidate the pledge.

“They don’t want to do what’s politically unpopular,” he said. “The Supreme Court will not hear a case that upholds the Pledge of Allegiance. It’s very unlikely at least.”

Rory Little, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, agreed. He said the Supreme Court is unlikely to review the case because Thursday’s ruling is the third appellate court decision upholding the pledge.

In addition, Congress passed legislation reaffirming the pledge in 2002, following the 9th Circuit’s ruling that struck it down.

“I think this is the last word on this particular lawsuit,” Little said. “It’s an important ruling.”

In a separate 3-0 ruling March 18, the appeals court upheld the inscription of the national motto “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins and currency, citing an earlier 9th Circuit panel that ruled the phrase is ceremonial and patriotic and “has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion.”

Greg Katsas, who argued the case on behalf of the U.S. government when the appellate court heard the case in December 2007, said the panel made the right decision on March 18.

“I think these two phrases encapsulate the philosophy on which the nation was founded,” said Katsas, who now works in private practice. “There is a religious aspect to saying “One nation under God,” but it isn’t like a prayer. When someone says the pledge, they’re not praying to God, they’re pledging allegiance to the country, the flag and the ideals of the country.”

An online survey asked this question:

Should the motto “In God We Trust” be removed from U.S. currency?

11% answered yes, it’s a violation of the principle of separation of church and state.

89% answered no, the motto has historical and patriotic significance and does nothing to establish a state religion.

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My Take: I am one of the 89%!  Our country was founded by people who immigrated here because of religious persecution.  It is part of our history!  Both the Pledge of Allegiance and the motto “In God We Trust” represent the how and why this country was created and nothing more.  It the parents of a child are raising their children not to believe in God or to believe in a different God, all they have to do is instruct your child not to say the phrase “under God” when saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school or not to even say the pledge.  That solves the problem.

That’s almost as bad as people saying state flags should not be flown with the American flag.  Ridiculous!  I can understand if you’re flying Betsy Ross flags and not a current US flag, but that is even pushing it.  Some people can just be so petty about little things it is really ridiculous.

It’s just like a friend of mine who was looking for some specific hobby tools.  She was looking for one that is not manufactured anymore, but there is one that is exactly like it but more modern.  It would not do.  A modern tool that did the same thing that the old tool did was not doing.  She said it had to be that tool because she was working on fixing an antique model train.  She was just being picky as this guy was about the Pledge of Allegiance.

He must be afraid of something to demand this.  Sure, I can understand he wants equal treatment for his religion, but that has nothing to do with the Pledge of Allegiance or US currency.  He needs to talk to somebody to overcome fear.  Or maybe he just wants to become a keynote speaker to speak out against religion and government mixing things up.  God only knows!

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