I really don’t like getting all political and junk in something that’s supposed to be fun, but this whole Pledge of Allegiance thing is getting ridiculous.
For one thing, the Pledge is not mandatory. Nobody’s being forced to recite it. The dweeb, Newdow, that brought this up had no intention of protecting his second grader from being forced to listen to those evil ideas in the pledge. They can’t make her say the pledge, but Newdow claims she’s “injured when she is compelled to ‘watch and listen as her state-employed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God and that our’s [sic] is one nation under God.'” From Whiny the Elder: “You can’t make a second grader listen to ANYTHING!”
For another, the Pledge is not an endorsement of a state religion. Read the dissenting opinion of Judge Fernandez. He agrees (as do I) with the premise that putting the “under God” phrase in was kind of stupid (my words) and borders on promoting religion. But he says, “…legal world abstractions and ruminations aside, when all is said and done, the danger that ‘under God’ in our Pledge of Allegiance will tend to bring about a theocracy or suppress somebody’s beliefs is so miniscule as to be de minimis. The danger that phrase presents to our First Amendment freedoms is picayune at most.” In other words, “get over it!”
I do take issue with people treating the Pledge as some sort of inviolate mantra. The Pledge was written by a Socialist. Read The Pledge of Allegiance – A Short History by Dr. John W. Baer. “Francis Bellamy (was) a Baptist minister… He was a Christian Socialist. Francis Bellamy in his sermons and lectures…described in detail how the middle class could create a planned economy with political, social and economic equality for all. Francis was pressured into leaving his baptist church in Boston because of his socialist sermons.
He considered placing the word, ‘equality,’ in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans.
In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the ‘leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, changed the Pledge’s words, ‘my Flag,’ to ‘the Flag of the United States of America.’ Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.
In 1954, Congress after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words, ‘under God,’ to the Pledge. Bellamy’s granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.”
The author of the Pledge is the very kind of person the anti-Communist Congress of the 1950’s was trying to get rid of!
I prefer my Pledge lemony…
