March 29 - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of ... You know what? I don't pledge allegiance to the flag, or to the Republic for which it stands, whether it's under God or not. In fact, that's the reason I love America: Because I'm not required by my government to make a loyalty oath to anyone or anything.

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Then again, I'm no longer in high school, where students are compelled—not forced by the government, of course, but compelled nonetheless—to do just that every morning.

So right after the Supreme Court heard the historic arguments about the Pledge of Allegiance last week , I headed to Brooklyn's Lafayette High School to see whether today's students had any sympathy for California atheist Michael Newdow—the guy who wants to remove the "under God" from our national loyalty oath.

In a word: no. After perfunctory morning announcements over the PA system (yes, they're still as boring as when you were in school), Anthony Composto's 10th-grade business class stood at attention (and when I say "at attention," I really mean "looking as if they were all trying out for roles on a back-pain commercial") and faced the back corner of the room (the classroom, like hundreds across New York City, does not even have a flag).

And monotonous recitation began: "I bled your egrets tuna flag..."

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Clearly,  the Pledge is not the highlight of the kids' day. There was not so much as a smile in the entire classroom, not even some kind of Reese Witherspoon-esque feigned enthusiasm. This recitation of  the Pledge was lackluster (and, thus, entirely befitting the false loyalty oath that it is).

Afterwards, the school's principal invited me to ask the students a few questions about the Pledge and the surrounding Supreme Court controversy. I started slowly, reminding the students that the phrase "under God" was added during the Cold War to better distinguish our compulsory loyalty oaths from those of the godless Communists. Next, I explained Newdow's argument, namely that the words "under God" amounted to a government sanction of Judeo-Christian monotheism. Newdow argued before the Supreme Court last week that every morning his daughter is "asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand over her heart and say that her father is wrong." Newdow's larger point is that even though students cannot be forced to recite the Pledge, they are compelled by teachers and peers to do so.

This stimulated a frisson of discussion (and when I say "frisson," I mean "one kid muttered something under his breath while the others squirmed in their seats").

"Even if you don't want to stand up, you should stand up just out of respect for our country and all the people who died defending it," said one student. I thought that was a fair comment; as a kid, I always stood for the Pledge, even though I never recited it. Full disclosure: the Pledge's vague totalitarianism always bothered me. Loyalty oaths, enforced patriotism, pledges of allegiance...they're so pathetic. It's like the government is some kind of loser on a first date, groping for approval. What's next? The entire House of Representatives browsing the self-help section of the bookstore for "If I'm So Great, How Come I'm Still Single"?

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And then I made a critical mistake. Hoping to stimulate a deeper discussion of Newdow's case, I casually mentioned that, like Newdow, I do not believe in God. (Full disclosure: I do not believe in God). Well, I might as well have told the students that I sacrifice goats in my apartment every night (I don't; the apartment is way too small). The kids' response to my atheism ran the full gamut from anger to hostility.  

In the barrage of questions that followed, student after student tried to get me to acknowledge the undeniable existence of a deity. Now, you might expect that from kids, who ignore everything they're taught in high school (even, apparently, evolution). But it's not what I expect from the learned members of the Supreme Court. Yet that's exactly the game they played last week in questioning Newdow's conviction that there is no God. Rather than address the real issue of  the Pledge—Should the government sanction a loyalty oath that affirms the existence of God?—the justices kept hammering at Newdow in a manner that suggested that they simply could not imagine that there are atheists in this land of liberty and justice for all. The justices' argument, reconstructed from their questions, amounted to, "OK, you're an atheist. But what's the big deal if we pray in your kid's classroom?"

Sandra Day O'Connor started it off: "A reasonable person could look at the Pledge as not constituting a prayer," she suggested. What part of "I pledge allegiance...under God" isn't a prayer, Newdow asked. Besides, even President Bush, in his brief supporting the Pledge, said it was a prayer.

Next, Stephen Breyer tried to find some wiggle room. "Many people who are not religious nonetheless have a set of beliefs which occupy the same place [as] religious beliefs," he told Newdow. "When you get that broad in your idea of what is religious, [it] can encompass a set of religious-type beliefs in the minds of people who are not traditionally religious."

Again, nice try, but Newdow wasn't buying. "For someone to tell me that 'under God' should mean some broad thing that even encompasses my religious beliefs sounds a little, you know, like the government is imposing what it wants me to think."

So David Souter sought a different way of stuffing God down Newdow's throat. "The actual practice of this...religious affirmation is so tepid, so diluted from a compulsory prayer that it should be, in effect, beneath the constitutional radar. It's...the ceremonial deism." Again, Newdow defended the right of an atheist to practice atheism free from government-sponsored deism—ceremonial or otherwise: "For the government to say, 'We've decided for you that this is inconsequential or unimportant' is an arrogant pretension."

Finally, Chief Justice William Rehnquist got to the heart of our nation's complete and utter misunderstanding of atheists (unintentionally, of course): He asked Newdow to remind him what the vote in Congress was in 1954 to add "under God" to the Pledge. Newdow reminded him that it was unanimous.

"Well," Rehnquist said, condescendingly and, more important, irrelevantly, "that doesn't sound divisive."

Newdow's response—"That's only because no atheist can get elected to public office"—elicited so much applause that Rehnquist had to threaten to clear the gallery.

On a side note, it's always amazing to me that there is so much pressure on atheists to admit that there's a God when, in fact, believers are the ones who have the much harder case. They, after all, believe in something that has never been seen physically. To me, atheists have the much easier argument. The day God presents Him or Herself to me, I will abandon atheism, I promise. But I will always oppose government-sponsored deism.

In the end, the confusion Newdow's atheism garnered at the High Court—as well as the hostility I received at the high school—only reinforces Newdow's central point: that a daily pledge of allegiance to a Republic "under God" mocks our nation's supposed tolerance toward all beliefs, whether it's Judeo-Christian monotheism, Buddhism, atheism, or, yes, even my goat sacrifices.

I'm nearing 40, so I was able to hold my own against the kids' peer pressure to believe in God. But could Newdow's 9-year-old daughter—or any youngster who believes that there is no God? Not a prayer.

Gersh Kuntzman is also Brooklyn bureau chief for The New York Post. His website is at http://www.gersh.tv

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