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God in Pledge Establishes Religion
by Groff Schroeder
| The first words that the Founding Fathers wrote in the Bill of Rights were, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." For more than 200 years all religions have flourished under the U.S. Court's broad interpretations of these words, minimizing the government's involvement in religion and maximizing the People's rights to practice their religion without governmental interference. |
Recently, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the use of the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. The words "under God" were inserted in the Pledge in 1954. |
The question that the court ruled upon was whether the child of an atheist, although not forced to participate, found self-exclusion from teacher-led group activities that included religious references, ostracizing. It also appears that the court believed that taxpayer-funded agents teaching religion as a part of a patriotic political exercise, interferes with the parent's right to freely exercise their own religious beliefs by teaching their children their own religion. |
The Congress, characteristically herded into a stampede by the press, immediately gathered together to publicly pray and self-righteously condemn the ruling. If the child in this case felt uncomfortable because of religious requirements in her classroom, how must she feel now that the U.S. Congress and many of the U.S. people are infuriated by her tiny request for religious freedom? As for her father, can you imagine how it must feel to win a minor victory to prevent the government from teaching your child a religion different from your own, only to be attacked, hated and reviled by virtually everyone in the U.S. for daring to try? |
Those of us who left religious life as survivors of abuse find situations such as these alarming, disgusting and all too familiar. Jesus said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." How many Christians would cheer having their children taught a pledge that included non-Christian religious ideals or support the diversion of tax dollars from public schools into a private school system dominated by a non-Christian religion? Why should people with non- Christian beliefs be expected to gleefully accept similar outrages just because Christian beliefs are being supported by government? |
Like so many other instances in history where intolerant theocracies rose from the ashes of free societies, as long as the majority shares the official government religion it is very difficult for them to see the threat to human freedom that government enforcement of religious beliefs entails. Relentless attempts to overrule the most basic founding principles of our republic and place Christianity in the schools are destructive to our nation, divide the People of the United States, and provide an almost impenetrable smokescreen under which numerous violations of the Constitution are being carried out by the very representatives sworn to uphold it. |
It is hard to imagine any purpose that legislative inclusion of the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance could have other than to establish Judeo-Christian monotheism as the official religion of the United States. Like so many of the other critical human freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights, freedom from government-supported religion appears to be all but dead. |
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