The Supreme Court v. America (June 26, 2000)

It can be tough to slog through all the legal mumbo-jumbo and references, but here are the actual opinions:
Majority - http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-62.ZS.html
Dissenting - http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-62.ZD.html

The bottom line is that based on this decision, it would be an easy thing for someone to bring suit claiming that the National Anthem is an instance of government establishing a religion and transgressing the first amendment, and playing or performing at ANY PUBLIC or government-sponsored or -associcated event is ILLEGAL. Get ready.

Also keep in mind that of our current SC Justices, ONLY TWO were appointed by a Democratic president. Souter, Kennedy, O'Connor, and Stevens were all appointed by Republicans (Bush, Reagan, Reagan, and Ford). If these appointees had similar legal philospohies to Scalia and Thomas, we'd have a profoundly different set of laws today. So voting Republican is not a very reliable way to get conservative Justices on the court!!

Quotes from the dissenting opinion:

The Court distorts existing precedent to conclude that the school district's student-message program is invalid on its face under the Establishment Clause. But even more disturbing than its holding is the tone of the Court's opinion; it bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life. Neither the holding nor the tone of the opinion is faithful to the meaning of the Establishment Clause, when it is recalled that George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of 'public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God." Presidential Proclamation, 1 Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789--1897, p. 64 (J. Richardson ed. 1897).

...with respect to the policy's purpose, the Court holds that "the simple enactment of this policy, with the purpose and perception of school endorsement of student prayer, was a constitutional violation." Ante, at 24. But the policy itself has plausible secular purposes: "[T]o solemnize the event, to promote good sportsmanship and student safety, and to establish the appropriate environment for the competition." App. 104--105. Where a governmental body "expresses a plausible secular purpose" for an enactment, "courts should generally defer to that stated intent." Wallace, supra, at 74--75 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment); see also Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 394--395 (1983) (stressing this Court's "reluctance to attribute unconstitutional motives to States, particularly when a plausible secular purpose for the State's program may be discerned from the face of the statute"). The Court grants no deference to -- and appears openly hostile toward -- the policy's stated purposes, and wastes no time in concluding that they are a sham.

For example, the Court dismisses the secular purpose of solemnization by claiming that it "invites and encourages religious messages." Ante, at 14; Cf. Lynch, 465 U. S, at 693 (O'Connor, J., concurring) (discussing the "legitimate secular purposes of solemnizing public occasions"). The Court so concludes based on its rather strange view that a "religious message is the most obvious means of solemnizing an event." Ante, at 14. But it is easy to think of solemn messages that are not religious in nature, for example urging that a game be fought fairly. And sporting events often begin with a solemn rendition of our national anthem, with its concluding verse "And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.' " Under the Court’s logic, a public school that sponsors the singing of the national anthem before football games violates the Establishment Clause. Although the Court apparently believes that solemnizing football games is an illegitimate purpose, the voters in the school district seem to disagree. Nothing in the Establishment Clause prevents them from making this choice.