In this February, 2009 video, FOX commentator Megyn Kelly worked hard to claim that she didn’t understand the First Amendment. Michael Newdow, who filed a suit challenging a school that required his child to say the Pledge (including the phrase “one nation under God”) showed considerable patience with Kelly, but the outcome was pre-ordained.
Kelly showed the same closed tortucan mind as the U.S. Supreme Court which strained mightily to through out his suit on a technicality rather than face the music. Emotions generated by the compulsion to force students to say the pledge has often caused massive distortion to legal logic.
This is a good example of the conflict between popular concepts of "democracy" and legal philosophy. If the majority approves, what's the problem? The problem, as Mr. Newdow pointed out, comes when you have an institution that is inherently in violation of certain principles—such as slavery (which was not disallowed by the constitution until the 13th and 14th amendments)—and threatens to create a circumstance under which a currently benign practice may emerge as oppressive. The Pledge of Allegiance is, in fact, a fairly benign practice, even with the phrase "under god" tucked into it, but it is a couple of steps from a Loyalty Oath and should we slide even more into a theocracy (as some folks wish) it becomes a litmus test for what constitutes a "good citizen." The potential for harm to the individual is innate.
That's just hard for most people to comprehend—until after the fact, when they then have to say "Oh, I had no idea!"