South Jersey student lends voice to keeping 'under God' in pledge

To have her day in court, Highland Regional High School senior Samantha Jones had to skip powder-puff football practice Wednesday. But she was OK with that. She'd already touched base with her teachers about what she'd have to make up from her classes that day. That was OK, too.

The Blackwood 18-year-old was living a life lesson as valuable as anything she would get in a classroom - lending her name to something she believes in.

Jones was in Superior Court in Freehold, N.J., on Wednesday as an intervenor opposing a lawsuit that seeks to have the words under God struck from the Pledge of Allegiance recited by schoolchildren. Jones, along with her parents and younger brother and sister, was granted intervenor status in September. They want the pledge to remain as it is.

The plaintiffs in American Humanist Association v. Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District allege that the full pledge recited en masse violates the rights of atheists and humanists. It is being brought on the behalf of such a child.

In a news conference after the hearing before Superior Court Judge David Bauman, Jones, who did not speak at the hearing, explained why the issue means so much to her.

" 'Under God' sums up the history and values that I've always learned make our country great," she said, "because it does acknowledge our rights don't come from the government but rather from a higher power, so [the state] can't take away the basic human rights it did not create."

Attorneys for the intervenors, including the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty for the Jones family and the Knights of Columbus, and the attorney for the school district, moved that the humanists' case be dismissed.

David Niose, the humanist association's legal director, defended it.

"This is a state-sponsored and state-conducted exercise that happens every single day," Niose argued. "It's done every single day, for every student in all classrooms. It's not like a biology lesson or a sex education class or a controversial novel a class will have to read. It's intended to instill patriotism and to define patriotism."

David Rubin, attorney for Matawan-Aberdeen, has said that the district should not be held liable for what is required by state law. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling has said students can choose to refrain from saying the pledge. In court, he acknowledged that the district requires parents whose children do not say the pledge to give a written explanation.

In a similar case, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that teacher-led recitation of the pledge did not discriminate against atheist and humanist children, and that the practice was a political exercise and not a religious one. The words under God were added to the pledge in 1954.

The Becket Fund, a Washington-based public interest law firm, successfully argued the Hobby Lobby case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court found that certain privately held corporations did not have to pay under the Affordable Care Act for employees' contraception if that was against the employers' religious beliefs.

After court Wednesday, Eric Rassbach, Becket's deputy general counsel, thanked the Jones family "for being brave enough to get involved in this lawsuit, to put their name out there, to be under public scrutiny and to stand up for the pledge."

Ironically, in 1993, before Samantha was born, religious language sparked controversy in her own school district, Black Horse Pike Regional.

The American Civil Liberties Union successfully represented a graduating senior who thought that a prayer that was to be read at commencement violated the separation between church and state.

At Highland's graduation that year, students and their families chanted and waved signs that read "We Want Prayer." Then-principal Frank Palatucci got cheers when he defiantly said, "God bless you. God bless the United States of America."

Samantha, who said she is Christian, said her fellow students have been supportive of her part in the pledge suit, and her teachers have asked her how it is going.

She found it interesting to listen to the attorney for the humanists explain their position, even though, she said, she doesn't agree with them.

She said she is looking forward to learning how the judge decides.

"I am so excited to hear the result, a little nervous," she said. "But I hope that it will affirm our right to say 'under God' in the pledge."