Now, I despise Islam, like all superstition, and will fiercely oppose things like sex-segregation in university gyms and the like. Also, the Pledge is a silly thing with no legal standing, and the “Under God” line should have never been added anyway. All of this, however, is beside the point. This is just a language. A student used her mother tongue, and this provoked the “hatriots.” These are probably the same hayseeds who never considered that championing a war that toppled the secular regime in Iraq would imperil the area’s Christians.
Not only does it piss me off that people are bullying kids, but crap like this just makes it harder to oppose retrograde Islamic prudishness when it arises.
That’s some dumb bullshit. Last school I taught at, Wednesdays were pledge-in-another-language day, and each month a different language was chosen, based primarily on the (very small) population of kids born in other countries at the school. We had Spanish, Pashtun, Russian, Mandarin, and a few others, but eventually had to reach to get things like Irish and French, based on parents who were willing to come in and pledge. Nobody, to the best of my knowledge, gave a crap.
This part in the OP’s linked news story is pure and utter BS from the principal:
The principal should not have apologized. Rather, what he should have done is told the offenderati that they were the ones mistaken; not the school, not the student who normally recited the pledge, and certainly not the girl who recited the pledge in Arabic. In a perfect world, he could’ve told the morons to shove their stupidity. Heck, in a perfect world, he would’ve told those idiots that they’re the un-American ones!
Why does this remind me so much of those idiots who flipped out ove rthe Coca-Cola commercial with America the Beautiful sung in a number of languages and those who flipped out where upset because they confused that song with the National Anthem?
New Rule: anyone who gets their panties in a twist over the pledge has to forfeit their voter ID as they clearly don’t grasp the essentials of American civics.
The school said it apologized because some parents of soldiers killed in Afghanistan were offended.
Do you mean to tell me that after thirteen fucking years of war in Afghanistan that even those Americans who served there don’t know what language they speak?
Well, my umpty-great-grandfather[sup]*[/sup] was killed in the Revolutionary War, and I’m offended every time someone recites the Pledge in the language of our former monarchical oppressors.
not really - those relatives bugged out to Canada before the war started, and didn’t come back until after the Civil War
