Is the Pledge of Alliegance Unconstitutional?

Great Debates
101

You know, while I agree with the court’s decision, I have to wonder if there are perhaps more important things for both the Congress and the people to be worried about.

I don’t say the pledge. Not really because of the “under God” part–that never would’ve conflicted with my beliefs, not at any point of my life–, but because I don’t want to pledge allegiance to something that is so often used to hurt others, and (ok, this kind of fits in) because I really don’t think that any omnipotent, benevolent, all-wise being would actually agree with everything that this country has been doing at any given moment.

Never once have I felt that my patriotism was somehow false because I couldn’t say the pledge without feeling all conflicted and stuff. I just stayed silent, and if someone asked, I gave them my response: I love this country enough not to follow it blindly. No big deal.

It’s nice that people are finally noticing that the pledge doesn’t mesh with everyone’s beliefs. But, you know, before I’d go around bitching about the words “under God” being in the pledge, or the phrase “In God We Trust” being on our money, I’d start bitching about the insertation of silly religious things into secular law and policy that actually affect me, and have more to do with concious religious choice. As an example, I offer prayer in public schools, or the surpression of evolutionary theory in some school systems, just to name a few.

I love my country. I don’t feel the need to swear an oath to a flag. And if I did, and I didn’t like the pledge, I’d make my own damn oath. The under God thing is against the constitution, but there are bigger battles to be fought. I’d personally like to see tolerance and understanding towards atheism (as well as other beliefs that are not generally accepted as being “okay”) taught in public schools. A country with true freedom of religion isn’t won by a bunch of pissy little semantic battles. But that’s just my two cents.

Now as for responses…

And yet there exist people who are not religious. This nation was, much to your chagrin, founded on many different principles, one of which was to keep religion out of politics. Now, yes, there are references to God in the Declaration of Independence and other contemporary documents. However, the Founding Fathers, to the best of their abilities at that time in history, strove for the protection of the non-religious minority against the majority.

Saying “under God” is, IMHO, a gratutitous reference to a diety which was deliberately meant to undermine the beliefs of atheists. Its exclusion in the Pledge of Allegiance will not tangibly hurt those who can say it without an ethical dilemma. After all, prior to 1954, Christians and heathen alike got along just fine and dandy without it. Why not get rid of it in order to NOT slight the majority, if the price is so small?

102

Came up with this, from Slashdot:

“No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” --Thomas Jefferson: Elementary School Act, 1817. ME 17:425

Can anyone clarify if this is a real quote from a real Act? I can’t find it, but then, I don’t know how to look.

103

Apos, thanks. :smiley: Just cite or quote however you want.

104

All I know is that reading the news the next few days will be very painful, because we’re going to be innundated with misinformed religious fundamentalists dragging out the old chestnuts:

[ul]
[li]“The United States is a christian nation!”[/li][li]“The Constitution only guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.”[/li][li]“Hi Opal!” ;)[/li][li]“This is all an atheist plot to eliminate religion!”[/li][/ul]

Personally, I’m thrilled with the ruling, and would like to see it upheld, though I don’t realistically expect it to (I predict Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, Kennedy, and O’connor will contrive some excuse to overturn it).

And for those who say that it’s only the atheists who are offended by the phrase “under God,” I should point out that there are other religious groups that don’t believe in a monotheistic creator, either, including Wiccans, followers of Shinto, and many sects of Buddhism.

But as I postulated in the “Which religious group has been most unjustly screwed?” thread, atheists get piled on by everyone else in society…

105

—Clearly, the liberals have declared war on your rights to proclaim your liberties are granted ‘under god’.
Next they will outlaw your right to have flags on your car. There are some who would suggest you are not a patriot if your flag flies, freely…into the wind.—

Look: how long are people going to continue to be THIS dishonest about the implications of this case. This case does not affect AT ALL your right to say any damn thing you please, pledge or otherwise. It is not even in the least in the same line as banning flags on cars.

Most liberals in Congress are horrified at this decision and are scrambling to denounce it: as the NYTimes editorial page says, this issue is a relatively minor problem that is going to cause a huge over-reaction in Congress: it may do more harm than good for its own cause (however just).

106

Argumentum ad populum.

107

Well, that would be a good start, but at our last meeting, we were discussing ways to stop you from even THINKING about God.

Well, gotta go kill some puppies - see ya later.

108

  1. Groups like the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council do more for the cause of atheism than any atheist could ever dream of.

  2. It’s very heartening :rolleyes: to see how many members of Congress take an opportunity like this to take on a phony air of piety and exploit such an issue to score political points. It is too much to expect actual substance to this piety.

  3. Assuming the existence of a perfectly benevolent and all powerful God:

a. Why would that God be impressed by hollow, mechanical expressions of faith, or by those who would encourage insincere words of deference toward the Almighty?

b. Would God be more upset about a federal court that challenges a two-word phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, or by the egregious greedy behavior of the execs at companies like Enron, Worldcom, Imclone, etc.? Let’s see…on the one hand, there is a court decision that in no way takes away freedom of conscience for sincere worship of God…on the other hand, there is pervasive fraud that has robbed many families of all or most of their life savings, caused many innocent people to lose their jobs, resulting in severe personal problems for many of those affected…all the while, the execs live luxuriously.

109

The man who brought the suit that sparked the court’s decsion was just on the Today Show. Since they used his name, I can just imagine the volumes of hate mail good Christians will send him.

110

Corbomite: They’re not California Justices; they’re Federal Justices based in California.

111

This thread full of interesting, thought-provoking ideas which, because of the length, I can’t possibly comment on individually. So I’ll just summarize my view on this and sit down again:

(1) I do not practice or follow any particular monotheistic religion.

(2) However, I do not bear any ill-will or anomosity towards any of those faiths, or those who practice them i.e I am not about to start a round of Christian-bashing.

(3) The case in question involved a 2nd-grade (?) girl, whose father (an atheist) did not want her school to force her to recite the PoA. I don’t think it is reasonable to expect an 8- or 9-year-old child to refuse to participate in this exercise, on a daily basis, because her family has different beliefs. Young children cannot be expected to have the same resolve in the face of adversity (adult supervision, “peer pressure”) that adults do.

(4) The words “under God” in the PoA, on our money, and so on, is clearly a religious expression rooted in the monotheistic, paternalistic faiths – or at the very least, the Deism to which Jefferson ascribed. I don’t see how “ceremonial deism” explains this away.

(5) Freedom of religion and the Constitutional “separation of Church and State” are two distinct, though often related, issues. Here the issue is not whether the rights of atheists or Christians are being eroded, but whether the expression of a particular religious view can be required in a public (or publicly funded) setting.

(6) A public school which requires its students to recite the PoA with the words “one nation under God” certainly constitutes the expression of a particular religious view in a publicly funded setting. One can certainly argue that a government which would allow this practice, once challenged, to continue is aiding in the establishment of religion by showing favoritism towards monotheistic, paternalistic religions.

(7) Does this really hurt anyone? In the Grand Scheme of Things, aren’t there bigger issues to address? Yes. But if we don’t take time out to address the little issues which our Constitution and legal precedents generate, how long before we decide that medium- and large-sized issues aren’t deserving of attention?

(8) From the earliest days of colonization, this country was populated and governed predominantly by people of various Christian faiths and denominations. This is still true today, even though we have a great deal more religious diversity than we did 200 years ago. No, no, wait, I’m not suggesting that this gives the majority any right to infringe on the religious practices of the minorities. . . What I’m saying is that, given the history of this country, it is natural – in fact, unavoidable – that our laws and civic/political culture should be rooted in Christian values and practices – deliberately or otherwise. At this stage it is hardly practical to begin throwing out all of those practices, institutions and precedents which are rooted in monotheistic, paternalistic religious values, because those roots helped make this country what it is today.

(8) So, I am not advocating that we drop the PoA (in whatever form), “In God We Trust” from the money, outlaw the singing of “God Bless America” or any such thing. Rather, I think we should drop the pretense (or, in the case of some individuals, the hypocrisy) that the government has not already aided the establishment of particular religious values. To this end, a certain public acknowledgement of that history of civic/political culture is unavoidable in the present, even while that gov’t supports the rights of everyone to practice their particular faith in private.

(9) Is the required recitation of the PoA (current form) in a public school unconstitutional? I think so. Could the PoA be re-written to acknowledge religious plurality which the country allows and supports? I think so. It was re-written once before. Why not again?

112

Am I correct in understanding that, while the children were not required to say the Pledge(let’s leave aside any arguments about the effects of shunning on young children for now), the teachers themselves had to lead the Pledge? Doesn’t this automatically violate the rights of teachers who might believe differently or not at all?

113

George Bush did not say this. The only person who claims he did is a member of an atheist organization who got press credentials. None of the other members of the media at the same press conference heard him say it, and the person claiming that Bush did can produce no documentation of the incident.

For the record, the ruling makes sense to me. People should not be compelled to testify to God against their will. There are no circumstances under which I would accept an attempt to remove the name of God from public discourse, either. Those who try to shut Christians out from the free market of ideas, or who attempt to proscribe public measures from consideration because they are motivated by religious beliefs (abstinence-based sex education, opposition to abortion, objections to official approval of homosexual behavior, the other hot-button issues of the Left) can go pound sand.

Suppose we remove the words “under God” from the Pledge. A class of students contains 29 Christians and one atheist. They all recite the Pledge. The 29 include the words, and drown out the atheist.

Any recommendations?

Regards,
Shodan

114

I had never heard before that the quote was bogus, do you have a cite? It would increase my opinion of George HW Bush if the quote was false.

115

Equally important, did George I ever disavow the sentiments contained in the purported quotation?

116

Remember our recent thread on which religious group is most discriminated against? I think this whole argument goes to show how bad athiests have it. Not in terms of physical exploitation (I am not in a million years suggesting athiests share victimhood on the level of, say, Holocaust-era Jews), but in being shunned by an incredible majority.

I guarantee you a black woman will be President of the United States before an athiest is.

By the way–to the great many religious folk out there who are perfectly happy to realize us non-believers are people too–please speak up now. We need to keep the fundies from warping this from what it really is. (cough WV_Woman cough)

117

Close, but not quite, Blowero. My argument is a bit stronger than ad populum, because not only is this belief widespread, but many groups of people have acted on this belief for long periods of time.

However, I agree that my argument isn’t definitive. I think long and widespread use creates a presumtion that all these groups of people were getting some benefit from their practices. This presumption could be refuted with evidence.

But, where is the evidence that pledges are ineffective? I haven’t seen any arguments for the opposing POV, even flawed ones. The belief that pledges are useless seems to be nothing but wishful thinking.

118

[Sherman Quote Hijack]

Shodan:

Scylla and I had a discussion on this earlier: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?&threadid=23090&perpage=50&pagenumber=2

  1. Sherman is an accredited reporter (accredited reporters notes are admissable as evidence in a court of law; the penalties for misattributing a quote are high), and you are accusing him of fabricating a quote out of thin air. There has been no evidence of Sherman found to have fabricated any quotes before or since.

  2. That quote has been published in the Boulder Daily Camera, “Free Inquiry”, Minnesota Daily and Associated Press, at the very least…and these are just what I can find online about 15 years after the incident. It’s not like no one knew about it at the time.

  3. The time and date of the quote corresponds with a time when Bush was exactly where Sherman said he was. It is not one of those “it happened somewhere and some anonymous person heard it” quotes that no one can get verfication of people and places on.

  4. Sherman says that Greg Lefevre of CNN also heard the comments (among other memebers of the Chicago press), and refers people to him. (Scylla, ever hear from Greg?)

  5. You are also accusing American Atheists of lying about the letter they sent to Bush regarding this, and the reponse they recieved: “After Bush’s election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by his original statement, and wrote “As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or supported by the government.””

  6. Bush has said that he thinks any atheist can’t be president–in front of Christians this time, not those lying atheists.

  7. Bush has never retracted the statement, nor has anyone in his cabinet or press disputed it, to my knowledge, despite the public knowledge of it and the letters of many atheists.

If you can find me evidence that Sherman has fabricated quotes before and that American Atheists lies about official White house correspondence and/or a contemporary quote from Bush that indicates that he is not bigoted against atheists, and I will reconsider my belief in that quote. While the evidence is not ironclad, it is sufficient for me to believe that the quote is valid unless new evidence turns up.

[/Sherman Quote Hijack]

119

Apparently Mr. Newdow (the plaintiff) has already been receiving threatening calls from those who oppose his position.

120

Gaudere is my god. :cool: