Topeka ? Kansas is joining 49 states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s decision that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in schools is unconstitutional.

“Nothing could be further from the clear language of our Constitution or further from the intent of its framers,” Atty. Gen. Phill Kline said at a news conference Wednesday.

Kline has signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to consider the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling from last June. The San Francisco-based court said reciting the pledge in school violated the separation of church and state because of the phrase “under God.”

The Supreme Court could decide this summer whether to hear the case.

The announcement coincided with a similar news conference in Oklahoma City at the meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

“The attorneys general of this nation, regardless of political party, regardless of ideology, are united in the belief that the Pledge of Allegiance should be legal in our schools,” Kline said.

Legislators and war veterans showed their support at Kline’s news conference. Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, said the House recited the pledge each day, a tradition since 1999.

“A lot of us get a little lump in our throat every time we say it. It reminds us of the reasons we’re there,” he said.

The decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is part of a trend of “troubling actions” by other courts, Kline said. Internet filters to block out pornography from school computers were declared unconstitutional by the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, he said.

That sends a mixed message to children, Kline said, by prohibiting the phrase “under God” but “mandating the provision of pornography in that same classroom,” he said.

The current case was filed by a self-described atheist from California who claimed hearing the pledge violated his daughter’s right to religious freedom.