November 6, 2003

Newsfeed: Stephen Presser

Stephen Presser, Raoul Berger Professor of Legal History, discusses the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance

The Supreme Court has recently agreed to decide whether the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion by the government. Stephen Presser believes the Pledge is not a violation of First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment was intended to make sure there was no established church in this country which means there was no church that people were required to contribute to and there was no church that people would be forced to go to or any doctrines they’d be forced to adhere to. There have been Supreme Court decisions making as clear as possible that no one is actually required to recite the Pledge.”

According to Presser, the debate is relevant today because of a current sensitivity to religion in the government.

“It’s been an ongoing debate ever since 1963 or so when the Court first issued its decisions saying you can’t have prayer in schools. There have been plenty of groups that have maintained litigation on the question for these last 30 or 40 years and exactly what motivates them is difficult to say. We’ve seen during this period increasing political influence of fundamentalist religious groups and perhaps that’s what has a lot of people scared about religion intruding too much into public policy.”

Presser says “under God” was added in response to Com-munism’s dismissal of religion.

“This was something proposed by President Eisenhower in 1954 in order to help distinguish the countries of what we then regarded as the free world from those under Communism. And the thought was we believe in a governing force for the universe, we believe in a rewarder of the good and a punisher of the wicked, as we used to say at the time of the American Revolution, and that distinguishes us from, as a lot of people called it then, ‘Godless Communism.’”

Presser believes the issue of church and state will never be completely resolved.

“In order to reach a decision, you look at all the facts and you decide on a case-by-case basis. So that what you do with regard to “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance may have nothing to do with, say, the presence of chaplains in the armed forces or putting ‘In God We Trust” on our coins or a myriad of other issues involving religion. The questions of whether supernatural powers exist, the role of religion in American public life and the meaning of the establishment clause are not things that we’re likely to see settled any time soon, if ever.”

— Samira Puskar