BOSTON, Mass. (TAB, RNS) — “Under God” will remain in the Pledge of Allegiance after Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court ruled May 9 that the phrase does not violate the state’s equal rights amendment. “Participation is entirely voluntary,” the court wrote as a whole in the decision of Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, brought by an anonymous humanist family. The ruling marks the second legal loss for atheists so far in May. On May 12, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that sectarian prayers given before government meetings were not a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of separation of church and state.
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