The plot thickens

Ellen Goodman weighs in on the custody implications of the Supreme Court case. She is concerned that the court decision is going to make custody battles uglier, because it is a step towards stripping custodial parents of all rights to make decisions in a child's life.

The Supreme Court ruled that the parent without full legal custody was without any legal standing. But if we want parents involved in the kids' lives, how can we remove them in the court?

I think that's overstating it, to say the least. Newdow did not file this motion in a vaccum; it was just another lawsuit in a series of lawsuits built less around his concern for his daughter and more around his need to show contempt for his ex-girlfriend and an entire family law system that refuses to roll over and just award paternal rights and eliminate maternal rights without question.
It just goes to show that sexism doesn't need religion to excuse itself; even atheist sexists find justifications for their sorry asses.
The Supreme Court should be able to consider this case in context of the custody battles and other controlling lawsuits that Newdow has filed. If he and his ex-girlfriend had an otherwise placid relationship and only clashed on this, I doubt it would have become a big deal. If he was an otherwise kind and agreeable man with just a hang-up about these two words, she might have still fought him on this, but I doubt it. As it is, this pledge case was a way to draw the schools and the Supreme Court into a private battle between a man and a woman who continues to buck what he perceives as his rightful authority over her.
Those two controversial words need to come out of the Pledge. Cases like this demonstrate exactly why we need a separation of church and state--when the state begins to dictate religious practices, no matter how small, it's almost never about some nebulous spirituality and almost always about using the Word of God to enforce political stances. And it clearly swings all over the horizon when people's belief systems get involved. What should have been a clear-cut custodial case has become a legal nightmare because each parent has managed to draw on the forces of religion and state authority to fight battles that should have been left in the kitchen and the bedroom. It's hard to avoid imagining how this, at least, could have been avoided if the separation between church and state could have been respected in the first place.
The Supreme Court couldn't have won, because in the end this fight wasn't about the separation of church and state but instead was using that battle to fight a battle closer to home. If they had ruled in favor of the Pledge, it would have really been in favor of the mother. Or if they had ruled against the Pledge, it would have asserted the father's right to meddle with the life of a woman who has ejected him from hers. Since it couldn't be about an actual constitutional question, it wasn't their place to rule on it. That's for the best.