"He referred to his decision to seek office again, pointing to a 2002 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional, saying, "I had been watching the courts grow steadily more secular and steadily more anti-religious starting with the 1963 school prayer decision.But for some reason this particular decision struck me as so blindingly stupid, so profoundly un-American."