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  • From: "Diana Duncan" <art2mis AT nc.rr.com>
  • To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Pledge of Allegiance
  • Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 14:51:06 -0400

The following is the text of a letter to the editor that my father wrote to his local paper and sent along to me...it has some interesting comments on the recent controversy over the pledge of allegiance.  Since I doubt his local paper has an online presence (we're talking middle-of-nowheresville) I'm just including the text rather than a link.
 
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Editor:

 

Like millions of older Americans I learned the Pledge of Allegiance before 1954, when Congress inserted the words “under God.”  Those added words never felt right.  They interrupted the rhythm of the pledge.  They got between “one nation” and “indivisible,” dividing that which should be united.

 

To my ten-year-old mind, the new words were also superfluous.  Wasn’t every nation (and everything else) under God?  Why assert the obvious?

 

As I grew older my concept of God changed and the words became offensive for other reasons.  God was dead.  We had no way of knowing whether God existed or not.  The words “under God” became meaningless babble.

 

The government-mandated reference to a monotheistic God in a pledge of allegiance to my country was a violation of the separation of church and state.  I was torn between allegiance to the flag and allegiance to the Constitution.  The Constitution won.  I deleted “under God” whenever I recited the pledge.

 

When I came back to believing in God, it was not a God who sat on high and reigned over us like some petty potentate.  Like many Christians and other theists, I conceived of God as being “with” us or “in” us, not above us.  Now my problem was with the word “under.” 

 

What right did my government have to tell me what my conception of God should be?  The answer, according to the Constitution, was that it had no right at all.  I continued to delete the offending words.

 

Now a federal district appeals court has affirmed my stand.  I would not have sued over the matter, but I am glad someone else did.  I am not happy that the judges’ remedy was to order a stop to the recitation of the whole pledge in the public schools, but I suspect they had no other remedy available to them.  It is not up to the court to delete the offending words.  That is the job of Congress.

 

And what does our glorious leader, George W. Bush, have to say about the matter?  Will he help us set it right?  No, he thinks the judges’ ruling is “ridiculous.”  He will send the dark forces of his administration to oppose the ruling.  I have one word for him: ridiculous.



  • Pledge of Allegiance, Diana Duncan, 07/01/2002

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