I don't like the Pledge of Allegiance -- at least not
now. I used to like it. I liked the respectful mood we assumed as
we all stood for the recitation in school. I considered it a beautiful
affirmation of what our country represented - liberty and justice
for all. That was back then, before President Eisenhower, during the
Cold War in the 1950's, gave in to religious pressures and allowed
them to override that precious liberty by inserting the words "under
God" in the Pledge. |
Now today, everyone saying the revised Pledge is forced
to affirm a contradiction: there is no way you can have a nation "under
God" and still call it "indivisible," because too many Americans are
divided on their ideas of that God. Christians oppose allowing a Hindu
to give the prayer in Congress or having a Muslim legislator take
his oath of office on the Koran. Pope Benedict XVI asserts that other
Christian communities are either defective or not true churches.
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Our nation has a long history of religious conflicts.
The Jehovah's Witnesses is a case in point since theirs is a religion
that opposes saying the Pledge in general because they believe that
saluting the flag amounts to placing another deity before God. They
have borne years of shameful persecution for this sincere belief,
even having the Supreme Court, during the days of pre-World War II
patriotic fervor, rule that their children should be forced to pledge
allegiance to the flag in their public school, thus violating their
personal faith (Minersville School District vs. Gobitis).
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This decision encouraged hate crimes against the Jehovah's
Witnesses. In Texas their missionaries were chased and beaten by vigilantes.
One Southern sheriff told a reporter why Witnesses were being run
out of town: "They're traitors; the Supreme Court says so. Ain't you
heard?" |
A Kingdom Hall was stormed and torched in Kennebunk,
Maine. Their literature was confiscated and burned and American Legion
posts harassed Witnesses nationwide. Nearly 1,500 Witnesses were physically
attacked in more than 300 communities, according to a report to the
Justice Department made by The American Civil Liberties Union.
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Partly because of this violent reaction to its decision,
the Supreme Court reversed itself in 1943, and declared a beautiful
affirmation of our First Amendment freedoms: "If there is any fixed
star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official,
high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism,
religion or other matters of opinion" (West Virginia State Board
of Education v. Barnette). |
This ruling reaffirmed the secular basis of our government
- a stance that would protect the religious liberty of us all if truly
followed. After all, there can be no freedom OF religion unless individuals
are free FROM OTHER PEOPLE'S RELIGION. Too bad that President Eisenhower,
and now today's religionists, insist on weakening that important principle
by destroying government neutrality toward religion. |
The ruling establishes the right of Jehovah's Witnesses
children to refuse to pledge allegiance to the U.S. flag in public
schools. That wording also confirms my right, as one who does not
believe in any god, let alone our nation "under God," to recite the
Pledge as originally written - "one nation, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all." |
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