Seriously!?, Mass. court hears Pledge of Allegiance challenge
Well, the words “Under God”, were added to the pledge years after the fact by some zealots with the Knights of Columbus. The original pledge as it was in 1942, was:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
So, as an Atheist and a veteran, when I pledge, I never say, “Under God”, and as such, I say it as it was originally intended to be said, and I don’t need a court order to do so.
Done and Done!
Please share widely!
Economy in shambles, war imminent, middle class devastated and people on either side are wasting their time on this? I honestly don’t care if one pledges or how one pledges, I really don’t. Since I graduated from high school I can’t think of a single situation where it’s been recited, to be honest.
And I agree with TR on “In God We Trust”, I don’t want God’s good name put in the unsavory places coins and dollars end up. Lastly I never get why some Christians get upset about this, our god is Christ and its never specified that is the god referred to here, so what are they defending? Seems like the right to riale up atheists. In which case I condemn them for rialing atheists and condemn the atheists who get so easily rialed.
because I believe it is said there every time?
Otherwise, I agree with you on the TR reference.
It might seem like a minor issue compared to various crises, but where is the challenge wrong on the merits? And why blame atheists when practices like these inevitably leave them feeling alienated? Religious references like this don’t belong in state pledges. They’re remnants of less sensitive, less diverse eras. Even if the God references are optional in Acton-Boxborough (and don’t assume every district is like that), it sends an inappropriate message to children–especially the atheist children in the minority.
All that’s missing is the Jesus quote Matthew 6:24, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Maybe we could print this on our money.
I tend to skip that part, and I’m far from convinced that our country offers “liberty and justice for all”. If we’re going to make this statement into a parallel national anthem, it needs to include all Americans, not just many of them.
The Republic been gone a long time now. Somehow “Plutocracy” doesn’t have the same ring.
They have said that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have to recite it as a violation of their beliefs. If you conveniently forget to say “under God” in a group setting nobody is going to notice. On the merits this is at the very top of the list of things I do not care about. Random passing God references are neither necessary nor harmful.
I wonder how you (and others) would feel if the passing references were in the form “one nation, under Allah” or “In the Great Spirit we Trust”. Or if the President said, “Zeus Bless America” after a speech. I suspect that random passing references to my god aren’t as much an issue as references to other gods or gods one doesn’t believe in. One really needs to look at this in the mindset of the non-believer.
It seems that these references are clear violations of the establishment clause.
I wasn’t just blaming atheists, I think those that insist it stays are dumber. To me it’s just a dumb debate, and the whole pledge is a little silly especially considering its history. But is it something the federal government even controls? Didn’t Ike add the phrase with an EO and can’t Obama take it away? At the end of the day the costs in time, media attention and money and legal fees would be better spent on other issues. I’d rather the ACLU take on the NSA rather than the pledge. Now there’s a real threat to liberty.
…but that does make me wonder what right does any part of the government have to alter the text of a work by a private citizen, in this case Francis Bellamy.
during the start of the Cold War, Russia was making a point about eliminating religions, so various groups, like the Knights of Columbus, were trying to put references to God into things in order to “stick it to the Russians”. So congress voted on this addition and Truman signed it, but the original pledge was introduced during WWII and was more of an anti-German, anti-Japanese type thing to single out those who would not pledge alligiance to the American Flag during wartime. So the entire thing is a leftover from when Anti-Russian feelings were running rough-shod through the USA.
…was written by Francis Bellamy in 1892 on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s landing in the New World. Bellamy was a socialist AND a minister it turns out. Congress adopted it in 1942, and you are correct on the “under God” history. This article shows the evolution of the wording.
but it was Eisenhower in 1954, not Truman.
Allah is just the Arabic name for my God, so no problem there. Great Spirit is very generic, more so than simply God, so there may be a stronger argument for that. Zeus hasn’t had any worshippers for centuries as far as I know, though he is probably the closest to a generic God among the Olympians. The idea of God can be whatever the believer, or even the non-believer, wants it to be.
Seriously, if there was a real attempt to change the phrase to “under Allah”, you don’t think those people who think our Protestant President is a Muslim (and even some who don’t) would go apeshit?
My larger point was that a no-name God can be whatever you want, which is why I made the point that Great Spirit could be construed as more generic and thus more acceptable. Like I say, I really don’t care and like the routine Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays kerfuffle I tend to roll my eyes and ask whether both sides don’t have more pressing things they can make federal cases out of.
by myself (my students typically abstain, though not for principled reasons). Occasionally, I’ll say it in a stentorian, news anchor voice or with a Cockney accent.
The only time I get embarrassed is when I have a foreign student in my room. This year, I had a Pakistani girl and an Italian exchange student. I can only imagine what they think of the whole thing.
I don’t know if I qualify as an atheist because I’m completely unconcerned with belief in God at this point, but I say the words “under God.” I frequently have to say things I don’t believe. We all do. White lies and all that. A couple of more words won’t hurt me. But Mike’s solution is fine as well.
The law suit, I think, is largely irrelevant. Hasn’t all this stuff been decided stare decisis-wise?
I will have to try that sometime. Thanks.
So President John F. Kennedy, proudly a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus from Bunker Hill Council #62 of the Knights of Columbus during that era was a “zealot?”
John F. Kennedy was sitting around in 1954 saying, “We absolutely must make clear, by amending the Pledge of Allegiance, that this is a godly nation, unlike those awful Commies?”
I think he was a 4th-Degree Knight because it helped when running for office in Massachusetts in the 1950s. His mother may have been super-Catholic, but I never got the sense JFK himself cared much beyond not wanting to be discriminated against for his family’s faith. Too urbane and analytical for that.
My father is a K of C Past Grand Knight who disagrees with church, and K of C, positions on a great many issues.
Took you seven months to say that Wareinmass?
Pretty sure he never attended a meeting.
Good catch-I didn’t even notice that was from early September. It’s nearly 8 months.