No Pledge, no job!

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Apos

It certainly isn’t the in the spirit of “no religious test for office” though because elections aren’t the same things a employment tests, there is no legal recourse here. But it’s not very American.

Heh–have we finally found an issue in GD that everyone can agree on?

I’ve got two problems with the pledge: I’m not willing to pledge allegiance to a flag, and I’m not willing to state that our country is “Under God.”

However, I do think this is very American, in the sense that modern Americans seem to apply a de facto religious test for office. It’s hard enough to imagine a Jew becoming president; can you conceive of an agnostic president, or, God forbid, an atheist president?

Which is one reason why I’m not willing to pledge allegiance to the flag.

Daniel

[duffer]

Is there any reason he couldn’t stand and say the pledge while omitting “under God”? Seems like he’s trying to make a political stand out of it, as opposed to his perceived persecution of his convivtions.

And CurtC said what I immediately thought of. Who the hell is he going to sue?

[duffer]

@duffer

And CurtC said what I immediately thought of. Who the hell is he going to sue?

Never mind, I just thought of it. It’ll be the city for allowing it to be said at meetings. I thought we had bigger things to worry about in this country. I guess I was wrong.

[kanicbird]

and I’m not willing to state that our country is “Under God.”

I hope you are not saying that our country is above God or at the same level as God.

[BrainGlutton]

@Paul in Saudi

Is it just me, or is the Pledge odd? It gives me the creeps.

Perhaps that’s because of the curious story behind it. It was written by a highly idealistic socialist (Frances Bellamy, cousin of Edward Bellamy, the author of Looking Backward) as a cynical marketing ploy to help his nephews sell flags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Bellamy:

Francis Bellamy (1855 - 1931), a devout socialist and Baptist minister created the Pledge of Allegiance for the Boston based Youth’s Companion in 1892. Youth’s Companion was a nationally circulated family-oriented publication, and by 1892 was the largest publication of any type in the United States, with a circulation around 500 thousand. His cousin Edward Bellamy is better known as the author of the socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward (1888) and Equality (1897).

Daniel Ford and James Upham, Bellamy’s nephew, owned Youth’s Companion, and approached Bellamy for a pledge to support a marketing campaign they had for American flags. In 1888, Youth’s Companion had begun a campaign to sell American flags to public schools. By 1892, the magazine had sold American flags to approximately 26 thousand schools. However, by this time the market was slowing for flags, but not yet saturated.

The previous year, Upham had the idea of using the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of America to spark additional flag sales to the schools. With a patriotic pledge to accompany the sale of a new flag, they hoped to revive and expand their sideline flag marketing business.

The Pledge was published in the September 8th issue of the magazine, and immediately put to use in the campaign. Bellamy used his position as the chairman of the state superintendents of education committee of the National Education Association to promote its use. As its chairman, he was responsible for the program to celebrate Columbus Day that year. He structured the program around a flag raising ceremony and his pledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_allegiance:

Bellamy’s original Pledge read as follows: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It was seen by some as a call for national unity and wholeness after the divisive Civil War. Bellamy had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided they were too controversial since many people still opposed equal rights for women and African Americans.

After a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892 during Columbus Day observances. The form adopted inserted the word “to” before “the Republic,” a minor matter of grammar.

In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference called for the words my Flag to be changed to the Flag of the United States of America. The reason given was to ensure that immigrants knew to which flag reference was being made. The United States Congress officially recognized the Pledge on June 22, 1942.

In 1954, after a campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan sponsored a bill to amend the pledge to include the words under God, to distinguish the U.S. from the officially atheist Soviet Union, and to remove the appearance of flag and nation worship. The phrase “nation, under God” previously appeared in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and echoes the Declaration of Independence. On June 8, 1954, Congress adopted this change.

I heard a story on All Things Considered which emphasized that the original pledge to “my flag,” as Bellamy wrote it, was worded to be a generical pledge of allegiance to any republican government; he hoped many other countries would adopt it, verbatim.

[TwistofFate]

@kanicbird

I hope you are not saying that our country is above God or at the same level as God.

so what if they were? they might even be saying
:eek: GOD DOESN’T EXIST!! :eek:

[Contrapuntal]

@kanicbird

I hope you are not saying that our country is above God or at the same level as God.

I hopr you are not saying that our country is subservient to God. If you are, could you please define “God”?

[ElvisL1ves]

It gets so hard to remember what the Republican position on an issue is supposed to be. Was the 1988 election really that long ago? When the GOP could feel make a centerpiece of their campaign the lack patriotism of Gov. Dukakis for having vetoed a bill requiring schoolchildren to recite the Pledge? Now we see *support * for a guy who leaves out 2 words in a *voluntary * reading of it.

[Bryan_Ekers]

By 1892, the magazine had sold American flags to approximately 26 thousand schools. However, by this time the market was slowing for flags

You might say it was, heh, flagging.

[Gorsnak]

@Bryan Ekers

You might say it was, heh, flagging.

Yes, but they had several banner years before 1892.