The Court dismissed Lewis' claims that the pledge was an establishment of religion citing "Zorach v. Clauson", "There cannot be the slightest doubt that the First Amendment reflect the philosophy that Church and State should be separated. ... The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State. Rather, it studiously defines the manner, the specific ways, in which there shall be no concert or union or dependency one on the other. That is the common sense of the matter. Otherwise the state and religion would be aliens to each other—hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly. ... Prayers in our legislative halls; the appeals to the Almighty that run through our laws, our public rituals, our ceremonies would be flouting the First Amendment."