Mere hours after a federal appeals court held that it was unconstitutional for a school district to force children to recite a Pledge of Allegiance that contains the words "under God," the U.S. Senate voted 99-0 to condemn the decision. President Bush denounced it as "ridiculous." And Jerry Falwell, the noted legal scholar, said it was "probably the worst ruling of any federal appellate court in history."

The press was no kinder. The front page of the New York Post pronounced the decision "God-Awful" and promised a "Holy War," while The San Francisco Chronicle opined that the decision was a case of "[c]ommon sense" being "trumped by too doctrinaire thinking." Even those editorialists who profess to believe in the separation of church and state had harsh words for the ruling. The Washington Post fretted that it would "generate unnecessary political battles." Meanwhile, The New York Times declared it a trivial issue, arguing that "[i]n the pantheon of real First Amendment concerns, this one is off the radar screen."

But in fact, the issue is far from trivial. Indeed, the intensity of the public reaction the to ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is the best evidence that the court reached the right result.

Here is the rest of the story.[url]www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=express&s=hoffman070102[/url]

Isn't this VERY old news?  This was reported in CNN and MSN the day after.  The Faldwell part is new, but then again, wouldn't we expect Faldwell to side the way he did!