Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

A judge in California ruled against the Pledge of Allegiance this week. Personally I don't have any problem with the words "under God" in the Pledge. Certainly it is less religiously coersive than having "In God We Trust" on our bills or the President swearing into office with a hand on the Bible. I usually just skip the words "under God" when I recite the Pledge. I am still pledging my loyalty to this great democratic secular country and if other people want to say those two words, it doesn't bother me. We have no say with respect to the dollar bill though. I cannot cut out the words "In God We Trust" without bringing on lots of unwanted attention every time I spend my bills. The truth is that there are many more important things to worry about in this country now to be spending time arguing about this issue. We really don't need to make a Supreme Court case out of this. But since there is a case, I'll have to side with the plaintiffs.

If we look at the history of the Pledge, it would be an obvious case of violation against separation of church and state. The original version of the Pledge did not contain the words "under God". It was in the 1950's, during the McCarthy era, that the two words were added to showed that we are a country of religion as opposed to the communists countries which are anti-religion. How can that not be a violation of the separation of church and state? Our government injected religion into an important institution of our country which had no religion in it in the first place. If the original version already had "under God" in it, maybe you can argue that tradition dictates that no change should take place. But in this case the government actually changed the tradition and so changing back to the original form would not be in any way be considered unpatriotic or anti-religion.

All this arguments over two words but in reality nobody is obligated to recite the Pledge in the first place. It is our right not to recite the Pledge. Conservatives would probably consider anyone who refuses to recite the Pledge unpatriotic or worse. I tend to agree with them. Yet one type of people who won't recite the Pledge are extreme Christians who believe that they cannot pledge allegiance to an earthly kingdom. Like I said, it is their right to believe what they want but I don't think I can be less patriotic than them by skipping two words in the Pledge.

The Pledge of Alligiance is important to the patriotism of this country and should be taught to all of our school children. So while we are teaching them we should tell them about the history of the Pledge including how the two controversial words were added to it. By learning about the history of the Pledge, the children will learn something about the history of this country's democracy. After that, with the help of their parents, a child can decide individually if he or she will use "under God" when they recite the Pledge. Regardless whether the child use these two words, if he recites the Pledge with true passion, we should be proud of him.