Pledge of Alligiance - Unconstitutional?

[DinoDoc]

I just wanted to back up something I posted earlier:

Neville: At what point did your daughter come home to you and say she was ostracized for not saying the Pledge of Allegiance?

Newdow: My daughter is in the lawsuit because you need that for standing. I brought this case because I am an atheist and this offends me, and I have the right to bring up my daughter without God being imposed into her life by her schoolteachers. So she did not come and say she was ostracized.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/26/Newdow.cnna/index.html

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Guy, could you explain your earlier post? I'd like to know how I disappointed you.

Perhaps disappointed isn't quite the right word... you just seem so pro-"under God", when I know that you know that it's an anacronism from a different time, and that it never belonged in the Pledge in the first place.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Asher

The key phrase was "regular basis".


Absolute nonsense.
I'm not saying we should rewrite history, I'm saying that the stuff we keep saying NOW, like the pledge, doesn't need to contain "under God". It was added in the 1950s and there wasn't a huge uproar, but the second someone mentions taking it out, the Christians from around the nation unite to keep it in. It's ridiculous.

It's not asking to outlaw history, it's saying remove useless words that alienate people who aren't from the same monotheistic background.

Simple, da?


I believe you're talking about the Catholic Schools? But the Catholic School District is completely optional. Here we have the Public Schools (no religion at all), and the Catholic Schools (religion).

Very moot point. BTW, I'm all for reforming Canada's government so don't get me started on that.

(1) Why does 'regularity" matter? If the teacher had required the little girl to get down on her knees and pray for her eternal soul even once would have been enough I'm certain.

(2) By now the 1950s is history.

(3) Canada actually pays the Catholic church to perform a governmental service, and it does so with predjudice against schools run by other churches which do not receive such funding.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Guynemer
I know that you know that it's an anacronism from a different time,

Anachronism or no, it still doesn't keep Newdow's theory of the Constitution from being insane at best. Reading the opinion in this case, I find myself in agreement with the dissent than the majority opinion.

[Guynemer]

Oh, and re: being ostracized, let me tell you a story.

One day, in high school (a public school, mind you), we were all called down to an assembly; none of us really knew ahead of time what was going on, it hadn't been previously announced or anything. So we all sit down, and programs are passed around. Apparently, some group from Eastern Michigan University (IIRC) were going to sing. No big whoop. But then I looked at the songs in the program--hymns, spirituals, various Christian tunes of all sorts.

So I turned to look at my girlfriend at the time--the only Jew in a school numbering over 1,500 students. We just got up and left, went to the library. No one bugged us or anything. But keep this in mind--we were 17 years old, we were two of the top students in school, and we were well known to most of the faculty via academics and extracirricular activities. Do you think some of the Muslim students, or the Wiccan students, or the Hindu students, or the Buddhist students, or the Jain students, or my fellow atheist students, would have felt as comfortable getting up and leaving? What if they were 7 instead of 17?

A couple months later, as part of my law project on religion in schools, I had the opportunity to ask the principal about that assembly. He said that it was allowable to have them sing Christian songs to the entire school, because "it was a showcase of their singing ability, not of the songs themselves."


Bottom line: public school teachers and government employees. When they lead their students in the Pledge and say "under God," that invalidates a huge number of religious beliefs that we have in this country. This is diametrically opposed to what our country supposedly stands for, and it SHOULD END.

[Imran Siddiqui]

This is diametrically opposed to what our country supposedly stands for, and it SHOULD END.

I'm not sure that anyone disagrees with this. However, it is not unconstitutional. We should petition our legislatures to remove the phrasing, but out judiciary shouldn't do it.

[DinoDoc]

You didn't see this.

[DinoDoc]

Out of interest, would you have been offended if thier singing program had included 'God Bless America,' 'America The Beautiful,' & 'Star Spangled Banner' instead of the Christian program?

[Guynemer]

It is state establishment of religion--you bet your ass it's unconstitutional to have government employees lead children in reciting it!

And, simply from a practical standpoint, how likely to do think it is that this could EVER be changed through the legislature in this ****ing country, where (according to Time) over half the population thinks that Revelations will come true? Any politican who stood up for what is right in this issue would have his or her ass bounced out of Washington so fast it would make your head spin. Do you really think 99 Senators think "under God" belongs in the Pledge? HELL no. I'd bet you that, deep down inside, half or more of them knows that it doesn't belong there. But if they said that, they wouldn't get reelected.

If we can't count on our elected officials to do what is right, all he have left is the courts.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think some people have expanded the 1st Amendment to mean more than it really does. Hence Asher's question if the 1st Amendment says 'seperation of church and state' (which it doesn't). It merely says we cannot establish a religion. Saying nothing about endorsement or even giving money (which we do to faith based charities, btw).

[Boris Godunov]

Imran:

It has been ruled unconstitutional, I believe, to display the Ten Commandments in public schools, has it not? Given that, how would you say the mentioning of God in the Pledge isn't a similar violation?

[Imran Siddiqui]

It is state establishment of religion--you bet your ass it's unconstitutional to have government employees lead children in reciting it!

Please explain how this is establishment of religion. I forgot the time where the government set an official state religion.

[Imran Siddiqui]

It has been ruled unconstitutional, I believe, to display the Ten Commandments in public schools, has it not? Given that, how would you say the mentioning of God in the Pledge isn't a similar violation?

Because the Pledge isn't related to a specific religion. No matter what people say monotheism isn't a religion, it is simply a type of religion. There is nothing about establishment of types of religion in there.

Oh, and btw, I disagree with the court on their ruling of the 10 Commandments.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Out of interest, would you have been offended if thier singing program had included 'God Bless America,' 'America The Beautiful,' & 'Star Spangled Banner' instead of the Christian program?

Frankly, all the "God Bless America" tripe that inundated us post-9/11 made me ill. And I wasn't aware of any religious references in the "Star Spangled Banner", unless there are some in the other verses that rarely get sung.

Would I have been offended by the 'Star Spangled Banner'? No. Just a little annoyed--sometimes, I think that it is sung so much that it loses all meaning. (Do we really need to sing it before sporting events, honestly? According to tradition, you aren't even supposed to applaud afterwards, but everyone does it.)

But that is substantially different than a religious program, or "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful".


(Apropos of nothing, what is the grammatical rule for things in quotation marks (like titles) at the ends of sentences? Sometimes I see the period inside the quotation mark, sometimes outside... it's all very confusing.)

[Boris Godunov]

I'm not sure about the constitutionality of the pledge, but I 100% agree with them on the 10 Commandments. It is the doctrine of particular religions, and public instutions have no business promoting any particular religious doctrine.