Pledge, Religious Expression Outside Bounds of 'Tolerance'
by Mary Rettig and Sherrie Black
June 18, 2004
(AgapePress) - The Supreme Court has preserved the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, but the door is still open for future lawsuits. A North Carolina educator explains how the nation's courts have set the stage for such action -- and a Florida judge is experiencing intolerance for the Pledge in his own courtroom.North Carolina State University political science professor Vincent Phillip Munoz recently testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. The educator told the subcommittee members that the nation's highest court ha set a bad precedent with their past rulings -- and those rulings, he said, encourage official hostility toward religion.
"It's easier to remove the Ten Commandments from the public park or to silence a school valedictorian who wishes to speak about religious faith than it is to fight a legal battle against the ACLU," Munoz stated. "It's easier to mandate a religion-free zone than to be sued."
Such rulings, according to Munoz, give "fearful" local officials and public school administrators "the incentive to eliminate the public acknowledgement of religious sentiment in order to avoid costly litigation."
Munoz said that if tolerance is going to be the rule, then it needs to be a "two-way street."
"It's common sense to say that government may not force a student to pledge allegiance or to recite a prayer," he said. "It's altogether different to say that because some feel like outsiders, others may not pray."
Courtroom Clash
A Florida judge has found an intolerant attorney in his courtroom. That judge is being taken to task for opening daily courtroom proceedings with the Pledge of Allegiance and prayer.
Judge Frederick Pfeiffer says prayer and the Pledge have been a part of his courtroom proceedings since 1973. But attorney Steve Mason claims the practices hurt his Canadian clients' chances at trial. The Florida attorney says his clients "felt compelled to participate" lest they offend the jurors -- and then going further, accuses Pfeiffer of blatant sponsorship of religion.
The 78-year-old judge is actually retired from elected judgeship, but is one of several senior judges who hears cases to help relieve the caseload of sitting judges. Pfeiffer, a life-long Christian and long-time members of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Winter Park, has a silver "Try God" pin stitched into his black robe.
