WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) -- The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to reaffirm the phrase "under God" as part of the Pledge of Allegiance, Attorney General John Ashcroft said.
The phrase was successfully challenged in the lower federal courts by a California man acting on behalf of his school-age daughter. The man contended that Congress violated the constitutional separation of church and state by inserting the phrase in the 1950s.
The lower court ruling was stayed pending action in the Supreme Court.
A petition filed by U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson asked the Supreme Court to review the lower court ruling, or reverse it without argument because it conflicts with high court precedent.
In a statement accompanying the filing of the petition, Ashcroft said, "Two decisions of the Supreme Court have said without qualification that the pledge is constitutional. No justice has expressed any other view. Schools across America, and hundreds of thousands of school children, have relied on the Supreme Court's repeated assurances as they have started their day with the pledge."
The attorney general said the nation's "religious heritage has been recognized and celebrated for hundreds of years in the National Motto ('In God we trust'), National Anthem, Declaration of Independence, and Gettysburg Address ... The Justice Department will vigorously defend our nation's heritage and our children's ability to recite the pledge."
Congress first enacted the pledge in 1942. The pledge had been substantially written by a Baptist minister in 1892. The minister, Francis Bellamy, professed Christian socialist political leanings but believed children should express patriotism for their country and flag.
In 1954, during the height of the Cold War, Congress added the phrase "under God" to the pledge.
California law requires state schools to begin each day with "appropriate patriotic" exercises, and specifies that the pledge fulfills that requirement.
A Sacramento, Calif.-area man, Michael Newdow, challenged the phrase in March 2000 on behalf of his daughter by filing suit against the president, Congress, the United States and two state school districts, including the Elk Grove United School District.
A federal judge dismissed the complaint. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the 9th U.S. Circuit removed the federal defendants from the suit.
But the panel reversed part of the judge's ruling, saying that Newdow and his daughter both had standing to challenge the Elk Grove practice of reciting the pledge each morning.
The panel also ruled 2-1 that the phrase "under God" violates the First Amendment's guarantee that government make no law that establishes or inhibits religion.
While the case was pending, the mother of Newdow's daughter informed the appeals court that he did not have custody of the child. The panel then further ruled that Newdow had the right to challenge the phrase on his own behalf.
After a rehearing by the full appeals court largely produced the same result, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
In the petition filed Wednesday, the Justice Department said at least two previous decisions by the Supreme Court have said the pledge was constitutional in its entirety.
The Supreme Court "has repeatedly refused to 'press the concept of separation of church and state to extremes,'" the petition said in part.
The Supreme Court is expected to act on the department's petition, including ruling on the standing of the department to bring the case before the justices, sometime before recessing for the summer in late June or early July.
(USA vs. Newdow et al)
