SACRAMENTO — There is much about society that Mike Newdow would like to change.
He does not understand, for example, why the English language allows itself anything so cumbersome and awkward as masculine and feminine pronouns. The Mike Newdow dictionary would replace "he" and "she" with "re," "his" and "hers" with "rees" and "him" and "her" with "erm." ("Come on," he says. "Try it out: 'Re went to the store.' It's easy.")
Of course, it was another one-syllable word — God — that gave Newdow, a 49-year-old emergency room doctor and a lawyer, his moment in the national spotlight. He argued that the phrase "one nation, under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the separation of church and state — and won, at least with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in San Francisco.
But he said he is not stopping there.
Despite the outpouring of outrage from politicians and pundits over the pledge ruling — not to mention the death threats on his answering machine — Newdow said he still plans to challenge the use of "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency. He said he would like to see an end to prayers at presidential inaugurations. ("At President Bush's it just went on and on," he says, clearly annoyed. "I said, 'Holy smokes, they can't do that!' ")
Describing himself as an atheist, Newdow said he plans to ferret out all uses of religion in daily life: "Why should I be made to feel like an outsider?"
Yet the First Amendment is hardly Newdow's only preoccupation, even if he calls himself the founding minister of the First Amendment Church of True Science (FACTS). More than anything, Newdow, a father in the throes of a custody dispute, said he would like to change family law.
Even more than the phrase "one nation, under God," Newdow said the term "in the best interests of the child" infuriates him no end. It raises his blood pressure, he said, turns his words into an angry jumble and makes him late for appointments. Television reporters still looking for sound bites on the pledge case from Newdow would be well advised to steer clear of asking about his real obsession. As he himself warns, "I could go on about family law for days."
Newdow, who grew up in Teaneck, N.J., graduated from Brown University, the University of Michigan Law School and the University of California at Los Angeles medical school. Although he began challenging the "under God" phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance in 1997, he never took a state bar exam until he decided to take on family law. He took the California test in February, 14 years after he graduated from law school, and passed without studying — "by sheer luck," he said.