I Pledge Egregious

Konrad Switters
July 3, 2002

Just days after an appeals court panel in San Francisco, California, ruled that the phrase "under God" amounts to a government endorsement of religion, we have every indication that 100% of United States Senators are fundamentalist zealots. How else can you explain their halting the Government to a standstill to formulate and approve a resolution [passed 99-0] stating that we all believe in God?

In fact, this is certainly not the case; and there is almost no point in disagreeing that some Americans do not believe in God. There is even less a point in arguing whether this is good or bad, or whether those "in the know" with God are any better off than those who deny the existence or idea of this supreme being.

The left coast courts ruling, written by Alfred Goodwin was well reasoned, and included a reference to a previous and concurring Supreme Court decision. The San Francisco court ruled as follows:

The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers 'that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. [1]

Of course government officials vehemently disagreed; and in their response can be seen a fundamentalist dogma in operation that is just as inappropriate to American society as is the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. The only thing worse than the right wing fundamentalist Republican response, was the fact that Democrats across the aisle also jumped on the fundamentalist bandwagon. Following the courts well articulated decision, were the eloquent intellectual responses of Democrats and Republicans who chimed in with their semiotic and theological expertise:

Tom Daschle: "This decision is nuts."[2]

Trent Lott: "This is obviously an unbelievable decision, as far as I am concerned, and an incorrect ruling and a stupid ruling." [3]

Robert C. Byrd [D-West Virginia] called Alfred Goodwin, who wrote the decision for the California court, an "atheist lawyer.[4]" Mr. Byrd seems to think that since Mr. Goodwin has articulated a rational criticism of the possible infringement upon the separation of church and state, that he should therefore be mocked by being branded a scourge of religion, and worse, a lawyer. Mr. Byrd's debased knee-jerk reaction is such that one might have expected that if the Mr. Goodwin were a Semite that he would have called him a "Jewish lawyer." This of course would have been completely intolerable, slanderous, and morally unjustifiable; which is what Mr. Byrd's actual remarks were as well.

And of course the commander in chief chimed in with his own fundamentalist zealotry:

"America is a nation... that values our relationship with the Almighty." "We need commonsense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God." [5]

Oh, I see; our rights are derived from God. I had thought that our rights were derived from an evolving series of laws interpreted and applied over time by democratic judicial processes. Why do we need all these atheist lawyers in America if we have God's will? If it was to to be God's will that the votes not be recounted in Florida, why was it necessary to get all those lawyers involved?

The Pledge of Allegiance is not some ancient Sanskrit prayer from the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is not a phrase transcribed from the Koran, and it is certainly not a credo borrowed from the King James Bible. The Pledge of Allegiance is an "oath" of American patriotism, written by a Christian Socialist by the name of Francis Bellamy, in 1892 [6]. It did not have the phrase "under God," in it until 1954, when Congress added those words; thus changing it from a patriotic oath to a public prayer. The rationale for the change was that the religious leaders in the United States were, 'worried that the nationalistic orations used by "godless communists" sounded similar to the Pledge of Allegiance, and so they lobbied religious leaders to insert the words "under God" into the pledge' [7].

The original 1892 pledge 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. [8]

The idea of The Pledge of Allegiance itself as an oath of patriotism is, in fact, not what the court in California objected to; they objected to the use of the words "under God," within this otherwise simple nationalistic affirmation. And it was exactly this secular form of the oath above, which had existed until 1954.

What does "under God" mean? Who is your God? Is your God the same as everyone else's? If the government endorses that an oath that is stated aloud each morning by schoolchildren throughout the United States, and it includes the words "under God," does that constitute an infringement upon the separation of Church and State and a violation of the First Amendment?

These are very important questions to ask for a country which guarantees "liberty and justice for all." These questions are not "nuts" or "stupid" as elected government officials have suggested.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert's [R-Illinois] comments revealed the massive hypocrisy of the fundamentalist position. In objecting to the court's decision, while at the same time trying to affirm the "spiritual" solidarity of the American public, Mr. Hastert illustrates the conundrum of the tenuous balance between politics and religion in American culture; a balance that fundamentalists would like to see tipped toward religious intolerance:

Obviously, the liberal court in San Francisco has gotten this one wrong. Of course, we are one nation, under God. The Pledge of Allegiance is a patriotic salute that brings people of all faiths together to share in the American spirit. [9]

It is simply not the fact that all Americans share the same God and the same religion. Therefore Mr. Hastert's statement is completely false, and represents nothing more than fundamentalist wishful thinking, to see all Americans sharing the same God and the same religion. As bad as this zealotry is, and as dangerous as it is to American cultural freedom, it is infinitely more dangerous because this fundamentalism extends beyond the borders of the United States.

The implications are staggering. Currently embroiled in a campaign described erroneously as a "war against terror," the American government cannot grasp the basic idea that its "American" beliefs are not axiomatic to human values in other cultures. To perceive all other opinions [and cultural prerogatives] as misguided, "stupid," or "nuts," is a devastating myopia.

Mr. Hastert's invocation of the "American Spirit" is simply a rhetorical tool for his utopian fundamentalist agenda. The true nature of the "American Spirit" is the genius of a system which allows Chassidic Jews in Brooklyn to live adjacent to Palestinians without a volley of Scud Missiles flying between Union Square and Bedford Street. And it is precisely the separation of governance from religious credo, of God from patriotism, that makes even the loose approximation of a "melting pot" of culture possible.

The logic of Mr. Hastert's argument is tragic; and it represents a blind one-size-fits-all religious fundamentalism which is as dangerous to American freedom and liberty as the fundamentalist ideology which spawns terrorism.. The wholesale intolerance of, and opposition to, the idea of a truly secular society reveals a dangerous shift that is taking place in the United States Government and within American society.

Last week Republicans were joking that the next thing to go would be the, "In God We Trust," from American paper currency; that is indeed a funny thought. They say, "money is the root of all evil;" and if the American Senators were sincere in wanting to keep the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, as a reflection of America's Judeo-Christian identity, it would follow logically that God's name should actually come off the American dollar. To engrave God's name on such a vile and contemptible manifestation of evil is akin blasphemy. Perhaps this issue should also be debated on the floor of the Senate; or maybe that's just absurd.

Words Cited:

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/06/27/pledge.allegiance/index.html
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/26/senate.resolution.pledge/index.html
[3] ibid.
[4] http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/27/pledge.wrap.ap/index.html
[5] ibid.
[6] http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/pledge.htm
[7] ibid.
[9] http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/06/27/pledge.wrap.ap/index.html