The Pledge of Allegiance

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A more recent lawsuit, ''Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District'', is currently under appeal in the [[Massachusetts]]' Supreme Judicial Court.<ref>[http://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/display_docket.php?dno=DAR-21069A Ma. Supreme Judicial Court - the appeal appears to have been abandoned.]</ref><ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/massachusetts-supreme-court-case-against-pledge-of-allegiance_n_2047799.html]</ref>
 
A more recent lawsuit, ''Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District'', is currently under appeal in the [[Massachusetts]]' Supreme Judicial Court.<ref>[http://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/display_docket.php?dno=DAR-21069A Ma. Supreme Judicial Court - the appeal appears to have been abandoned.]</ref><ref>[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/massachusetts-supreme-court-case-against-pledge-of-allegiance_n_2047799.html]</ref>
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==See also==
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*[[Dominionism]]
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*[[Pseudohistory]]
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*[[The United States as a Christian nation]]
  
 
== Footnotes ==
 
== Footnotes ==

Revision as of 17:45, 17 March 2013

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The Pledge of Allegiance is a statement of loyalty to the United States. For most natural born US citizens, they will first encounter it as a form of indoctrination in their early school years. It is also required in its exact form of all newly naturalized citizens of the US.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Reciting the pledge is generally accompanied by covering one's heart.

Contents

Indoctrination

The pledge, a ritualized requirement for many US school kids, is asking them to state that they will be loyal to the United States - mandatory patriotism. A pledge they certainly cannot understand the ramifications of at 6 or 7 years old. At that point, it becomes so routinized for children that as they become more aware of what such a pledge might mean, they have long stopped thinking about it; the way you sing familiar lyrics without ever stepping back to analyze them. The indoctrination of students into this formulaic trust that they should be loyal to the US, and without any accompanying discussions of what loyalty mean, is no better than any other loyalty oath used throughout history to engender as sense of proper behavior toward a given nation or king.

Original version

From a Porky Pig cartoon in the 1930s, "under God" is missing because it wasn't introduced until 1954. Deal with it.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, and read as follows:

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Francis Bellamy was a socialist, and the cousin of Edward Bellamy, author of the utopian novel Looking Backward, a fact which seems to be lost on the conservatives, who insist on mandatory blind patriotism, although not on libertarians, who do note this fact and see it as evidence of a connection between blind patriotism and other functions of the state, such as taxation and war.

In 1923 the National Flag Conference changed the words "my Flag" to "the Flag of the United States" and the words "of America" were added a year later. On Jun 22, 1942 the United States Congress officially recognized the Pledge as a the national pledge of allegiance.

The words "under God" were added over 50 years after the original pledge was written (in June 14, 1954), through the lobbying efforts of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal group.

Criticism of requiring or promoting the Pledge

Freedom of Speech

In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that it unconstitutional to force anyone against his or her will to recite the pledge. This case was known as West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)[1].

Freedom of Religion

Many public school still require every pupil to to recite the Pledge anyway. Various groups have challenged this rule, particularly the "under God" clause. Although the religious right attributes opposition to the Pledge to atheistss alone, another notable protest of the Pledge was by the Jehovah's Witnesses, who refuse to swear to anything less than God.

The naturalization ceremony is another area that could be problematic and ripe for a challenge, but the pledge is not legally binding, and is just part of the overall naturalization ceremony. The binding part of the ceremony is the Oath of Allegiance, which also contains references to God, but you may sign a waiver to remove those particular references.

In 2002, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that requiring use of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance when used in public schools was unconstitutional for violating the United States' Constitution's establishment clause.[2]

Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 543 U.S. 1 (2001)[3] (reversing Newdow v. Elk Grove, et al., 328 F.3d 466 (9th Cir. 2002)[4] was heard before the United States Supreme court 2 years later. It was denied on grounds of standing, claiming the non-custodial father did not have grounds to sue on his child's behalf. The actual question of "under God" was not addressed, but the Ninth Circuit's ruling was reversed, so little children in California (as well as Alaska, Washington, and Oregon) still say the words "under God" or face the wrath of their peers, everywhere.

A more recent lawsuit, Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District, is currently under appeal in the Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court.[5][6]

See also

Footnotes

  1. The decision
  2. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0DE2DE123EF934A15755C0A9649C8B63
  3. The decision
  4. [1]
  5. Ma. Supreme Judicial Court - the appeal appears to have been abandoned.
  6. [2]
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