The Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division (Monmouth County) today granted a motion to dismiss filed by the Firm, in partnership with its co-counsel Sidley Austin LLP and Liberty Institute, on behalf of their pro bono clients The American Legion, The American Legion Department of New Jersey, and The American Legion Matawan Post 176, dismissing a lawsuit brought by the American Humanist Association challenging the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance under the equal protection clause of the New Jersey Constitution. In its 21 page decision, the Court adopted the Firm’s arguments in their entirety, and concluded that equal protection principles are not violated when students voluntarily recite the Pledge containing the words “under God,” finding these words to be “as interwoven through the fabric of the Pledge of Allegiance as the threads of red, white and blue into the fabric of the flag to which the Pledge is recited,” and that “as a matter of historical tradition, the words ‘under God’ can no more be expunged from the national consciousness than the words ‘In God We Trust’ from every coin in the land, than the words ‘so help me God’ from every presidential oath since 1789, or than the prayer that has opened every congressional session of legislative business since 1787.”
