Bid to remove ‘God’ from US pledge

SUPREME Court judges are to rule if millions of US schoolchildren should continue pledging allegiance to one nation “under God”.

An atheist argued the religious reference in the Pledge of Allegiance, a pledge of loyalty to the US usually recited in American classrooms, was an unconstitutional government promotion of religion in his daughter's third-grade classroom in Sacramento, California.

"I am an atheist. I don't believe in God," Michael Newdow told the justices and a packed Washington courtroom, arguing with passion and personal asides unusual for the dry, cerebral high court.