Even the thoroughgoing secularists at Dispatches From the Culture Wars are weary of Michael Newdow's jejune attempts to banish any and all traces of religious expression from our public life:
I am obviously one of the more staunch advocates of church/state separation one is ever likely to encounter, as volumes of my writing can easily attest. But let me say this: it's time for Michael Newdow to go away. He is the father who filed the lawsuit to have the words "under God" removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, a lawsuit he won on the merits at the appeals court level only to have the Supreme Court overturn that decision due to a lack of standing. He has since refiled that suit on behalf of other parents and the whole process has begun anew. I think he's correct on the Pledge case, though I think it was argued pretty badly, and overall I just don't think it's a big deal.
His latest case, however, takes nitpicking to a whole new level. He has now filed suit in Federal court claiming that the fact that Bush (and all other presidents, as far as I know) will have a minister say a prayer at his inauguration constitutes an illegal "establishment of religion". Now, it's one thing to say that the government cannot force school children to pray, as the courts did in 1963. It's quite another to say that a President cannot choose to have a prayer spoken at his own inauguration ceremony.
The government is forbidden from taking official positions on religious matters, but that doesn't mean that government officials cannot offer their opinions or participate in religious ceremonies or, for that matter, spend 12 hours a day praying if they want to. They just can't give those things the force of law, demand that the government endorse their beliefs, or force others to participate in them.
Michael, it's time for you to go away. This is no longer about taking a principled stand for the establishment clause, it's now about your ego and your desire to stay in the public eye. Your 15 minutes are up.
Precisely. Perhaps Newdow should read David Gelernter's essay in Commentary that Viewpoint featured on Saturday. For that matter, so should Dispatches From the Culture Wars.
