It's very interesting that a federal appeals court declared the modern version of the Pledge of Allegience unconstitutional. As an athiest, I fully support this decision and hope it sticks. It likely won't, since every politician around is taking the opportunity to ass-kiss the Christian Majority and scream from the church-tops about how terrible this is For America. Allow me to predict that the shallow soul who writes the decision that overturns this one will ramble on about how the Pledge is necessary to establish the good moral fiber of our country's children and other such happy-horse-shit rot. The reversal will be an embarrassing diatribe of patriotism and holy high ground that will set non-Christians back to our dark, evil caves to gnash our teeth and stab pincer beetles in our eyes while we rape children and consort with communists. If you can't understand that politicians always mouthpiece the majority groupthought because that's who makes them rich, then you're missing something incredibly vital about how the world works. There's nothing at all noble about the senators calling this decision "stupid" or "ridiculous"... or about their vow to immediately draft an opposition document. All they're doing is securing their re-election.
To put the Pledge of Allegiance into its historical perspective, you have to know that it didn't always include "under god." That little bit of subtle indoctrination was inserted in 1954, at the very height of McCarthyism. Where, if you weren't a god-fearing, pinko-hating Dobie Gillis, you were assumed to be a satanic, commie Maynard G. Krebs.
Watch and enjoy how everybody scrambles to label this decision "political correctness"... which is funny coming from lawmakers who *invented* political correctness. We don't call it "everyday slob correctness," after all. It's also amusing to see how the only people speaking out against the case are those who are already of the moral majority. Of course President Bush is going to decry the decision; he's a goddamn Christian whose father doesn't even consider athiests to be good Americans. Senator Kit Fisto, the Honorable Jedi Master from Missouri, is quoted as saying "Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves." Well, the Founding Fathers were, by and large, deists who believed that "God" wasn't around anymore anyway... not to mention that they were the ones who set the precedent for the separation of church and state. You can read some FF quotes here and then tell me how they'd react to their country forcing kids to declare for Christianity in a public, state-run forum. (By the way, Senator, I would have expected you to imagine the Founding Fathers watching from Heaven, not spinning in their graves, which is where I say they are.)
Because, friends, the Pledge is including a religious message, a Christian message. Ike didn't put that in there so kids could praise Allah every weekday morning. That's the Christian god being invoked and don't even pretend that it's not, that it's some kind of generic Unitarian god that all little zealots can adore.
I think the coolest excerpt from the court's written decision was the bit that said allowing some children to recite the complete Pledge while some don't sends a clear message that the *country* supports the god-club. And if you're not in the god-club, you're somehow less of an American. How true. I don't care if you sit with your head down and hum to yourself while 29 other kids are reciting in unison: you, the non-believer, are being excluded. If the typical white christian majority member doesn't think this is the case, that non-believers can merely sit idle during the recitation, then I invite them to bandy about the word "nigger" for a couple days. That is certainly exclusionary, definitely insulting, obviously inappropriate. Pulling that word out in the presence of African-Americans is the same argument (not the same thing, admittedly) as swearing fealty to God in front of athiests. Now imagine telling black children that they have to say the n word every morning. Or stand in a room while 29 white kids say it.
Perhaps most pious critics are more afraid of the other dominoes that could fall. "In God We Trust" on money. All those 9/11 "God Bless America" signs. One particularly insipid commentator was worried that we wouldn't be able to sing all of our classic patriotic songs. Give me a fucking break. We're going to continue to offend anybody who isn't Christian just so we can sing fucking songs? That statement pisses me off so goddamn much that I want to puke.
But I don't propose carrying this legal precedent over into the slogan, song and money issues. I don't ask that Town Mayors across the country jackhammer religious words off their statues and old buildings. I'm not going to demand that people remove those hideous Christ-in-a-Bathtub sculptures from their front lawns, or that they can't wear necklaces with crosses on them.
We're talking about kids. Kids in a public, state-run facility. Kids that generally have no idea about the ideology they're embracing, other than that they're told by Every Adult They Know that's it's correct, absolute, and the Only Way. The "under god" line in the Pledge is a relic from a very dark era of American history, where no one was trusted and if you blinked at the stare of the worthy then you must be hiding something.
Take "under god" out and let kids return to the real meaning of the Pledge: declaring themselves Americans. This country wasn't founded for just one religion. It was founded for many, by many... and that includes the lack of religion. Keep your religion in your homes and your churches, and don't force it on anybody in earshot simply because you've ceased to think about the issue. Many of us are still thinking.
