Yeah, I'd wondered about that one too. I knew it hadn't been ruled unconstitutional (although making kids take a daily fealty oath is pretty freakin' paranoid, not to mention feudal). But yeah, the current outcry is pretty ridiculous. I like using a conceptual trick the feminists came up with (or at least use frequently) -- replace whatever issue is being discussed with a white vs black race equivalent and see if it's still tolerable/intolerable/whatever.

For instance, pretend that the pledge of allegiance didn't say "one nation, under God" but rather "one white nation", or "one nation, founded by caucasians" or some such. Further imagine that the clause about white people was added well after the composition of the original pledge (as was "under God"). Now say that representative Byrd was bitching not about a nation ruled by atheists, but by blacks. Voila. Now you can feel all liberally self-righteous about bashing him, if you didn't already.

I'm still looking for the exact quote from Byrd. Interestingly, all the sites that quote his comments from today have

I hope the Senate will waste no time in throwing this back in the face of this stupid judge. Stupid, that's what he is.

...and I believe that's the sentence he spoke immediately before the send-the-atheists-back-to-Africa quote, but nobody seems to have the atheist quote itself. Mmmm. Spin.

It's enough to make you fume. Heck, I think the entire concept
of having children reciting a loyalty oath each day in
school is unconstitutional, but there is absolutely no
question in my mind that this ruling was correct given the previous
Supreme Court rulings on school prayer.

Some of the more interesting rulings on School Prayer

1962 - Engel v. Vitale
At issue is the classroom recitation of a prayer written by
the New York Board of Regents. In 1951, in an effort to
strengthen moral education in the schools, the Board
composed what they considered a non-denominational
prayer and encouraged local schools to recite the following
at the start of each day: "Almighty God, we acknowledge
our dependence upon Thee, and we beg thy blessings upon
us, our parents, our teachers, and our country." The
Supreme Court finds the required recitation of the prayer
inconsistent with the Establishment Clause and rules that
authorities may not compose official prayer to be said in
public schools.

1971 - Lemon v. Kurtzman
Pennsylvania and Rhode Island statutes provide for direct
state funding for teachers? salaries at parochial schools
with the restrictions that the money only be spent for
secular instruction. The Supreme Court bars the state aid
ruling that such plans cause excessive entanglement of civil
authority and religion. The decision establishes a three-part
test, known as the Lemon test, for determining whether a
law or a government policy violates the Establishment
Clause. First, the statute must have a secular legislative
purpose; second, its principal or primary effect must be one
that neither advances nor inhibits religion; and finally, the
statute must not foster an excessive government
entanglement with religion.

It is absolutely clear that the Pledge of Allegiance does not pass
the Lemon test. It does not possess a secular legislative purpose.
(Reciting the pledge serves no legislative purpose at all, but that
is another matter). Its principal effect is quite clearly to
advance religion. You can get no better indication of that
by quoting Eisenhower, who said when he signed it into law:

"In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's
heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual
weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource in peace and
war."

One wonders just whose religion he was talking about.

The idea that atheists aren't patriotic or loyal to this
country is not a new one, nor one that seems to have been
foreign to some recents presidents. Former President
George Bush
had an interesting exchange on this very subject, claiming that:

No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be
considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

I find such comments chilling. Given the SCOTUS actions today
in upholding the constitutionality of random drug screening
of students and the use of school vouchers for religious
education, I shudder to think where our country is going.
There is no better illustration of where unflinching devotion
to one's religion can lead than the smoking wreckage of
the World Trade Center. If we do not find a way to tolerate
each other's religious beliefs or lack thereof, we are
migrating down a very nasty, very slippery slope.

The
pledge itself does nothing but stifle freedom of expression
and religion, and should itself be discarded with all the
relics of our Cold War nationalism. It is a childish conceit
to think of our nation as being somehow sanctified by God, rather
like praying before a football game for victory. It is a dangerous
conceit, and one periously close to the kinds of religious fanaticism
which cause so much suffering in our world.

Rant completed, at least for now.

The senate vote was 99-0. Does anyone know whether this was because someone abstained? If so, I'd love to know who. (Hmm - does the VP part count as one of the 100? Is he still in a bunker somewhere?)

I found the exact quote by searching the Congressional Record. On June 26, Robert Byrd said

I, for one, am not going to stand for this country's being ruled by a bunch of atheists. If they do not like it, let them leave.

If you're interested, you can search or browse the Congressional Record at THOMAS, the online database system of the Library of Congress. You can also look at the text and status of legislation past or present.