Here are my thoughts on the ridiculous decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals prohibiting the use of the “under God” phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance and other assaults on the presence of religious and other faith-based symbols and practices in our public square:
Neutrality as to the diversity of sectarian practices and particular religious beliefs or the absence thereof is consistent with the intent of the American Founders. But, if by our current definition of neutrality we have come to mean neutrality on the validity of the ideas espoused in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence; if we mean neutrality on the question of the validity of the foundational belief in a moral order undergirded by natural law with its origins in divine law; or if we mean neutrality on the validity of the premise that the freedoms and equality we champion can be sustained only within this moral order; then our civic republican ideal of ordered liberty under the rule of law cannot survive.