That's how the case landed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; that's why Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott filed a 32-page brief in support of the Texas Pledge. Finally, for now, the case comes to an end: The Court of Appeals has handed down its ruling, and the Texas Pledge remains intact. Let's just jump to the end:
The pledge is a patriotic exercise, and it is made no less so by the acknowledgment of Texas's religious heritage via the inclusion of the phrase "under God." A pledge can constitutionally acknowledge the existence of, and even value, a religious belief without impermissibly favoring that value or belief, without advancing belief over non-belief, and without coercing participation in a religious exercise. Texas's pledge is of this sort and consequently survives thischallenge.