In a response to the atheists’ lawsuit, New Jersey high school student Samantha Jones is going to court to defend her right to recite the words “one nation under God” in the pledge. Jones and her family are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
“When I stand up, put my hand over my heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance, I am recognizing that my rights come from God, not from the government,” said Jones, a senior at Highland Regional High School, according to the Becket website. “If anyone wants to remain silent, that is their right. But it is not their right to silence me.”
The phrase “under God” was written into the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. In May, the highest court in Massachusetts ruled in a similar case that the words “under God” in the pledge reflect a patriotic practice, not a religious one.
“It’s not the place of state governments to take a position on God-belief,” said Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association. “The current Pledge practice marginalizes atheist and humanist kids as something less than ideal patriots, merely because they don’t believe the nation is under God.”
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