THE NINTH Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that it is unconstitutional for public school teachers to lead their classes in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, specifically the phrase "one nation under God." The enormous shockwave of outrage that has emanated from our nation's capital following this ruling is both patently ridiculous and directly frightening. The steady stream of rabid denunciations that has spewed forth against the court from the perpetually flapping mouths of politicians on both sides of the aisle is a sickening misrepresentation of the Bill of Rights.
The idea that it is the place of government officials to lead children in affirmations of religious belief is in direct conflict with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. There can be no sane and honest disagreement with this simple fact.
In 1954, when Congress passed a law adding the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, it was clear that their intent was not secular. At a time when the nation feared and hated communism and the associated atheism, the bill was passed precisely to draw a clear line between the evil Godless commies and the true-blue God-fearing Americans. "From this day forward," proclaimed an eerily ecstatic President Dwight D. Eisenhower upon signing the bill into law, "the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty."
The law was intended to religiously indoctrinate children from the start. But then, it should be obvious to every person with half a brain that the phrase "under God" cannot, by definition, carry any pretext of secularism, no matter how some in the judicial branch might like to wrangle it.
Let those who support public school teachers leading children in the pledge state now that they oppose separation of church and state, that they oppose the Establishment Clause, and that they see no harm in a little bit of governmental endorsement of Judeo-Christian monotheism. At least that way, when they demonize a federal judge, the issue will be cleared of confusion and we can know what he's being crucified for.
It is not now nor should it ever be the government's role to use tax-funded institutions to lead children in religious affirmations. It is simply an unnecessary abuse of a captive audience of impressionable young minds.
To be fair, children do not have to participate in the pledge if they do not want to. With all the conscientiously objecting eight-year olds out there, there simply is no conceivable way any child ever could be coerced into a statement of government-condoned religious belief. After all, they are perfectly allowed to sit quietly and unpatriotically by while their teachers send students the message that in order to pledge allegiance to their flag they also have to pledge belief in God.
But then this is exactly the environment that the McCarthyistic Congress and President Eisenhower wanted to create when they added the words "under God" to the pledge in 1954. Any good American, they reasoned, would want to be diametrically opposed to communism in all ways possible. So if the totalitarian communist government took up arms against belief in God, American politicians saw that they had to strike a blow for belief in God.
It is a tragic irony that, in this attempt to distance America from atheistic communism, these American politicians themselves mirrored Stalin's government in a very frightening way: They made patriotism contingent upon agreement with the government's religious views. An avowed atheist could no more be an American patriot, they said, than a devoted Christian could be a Soviet patriot. And so, with one sweeping moral judgment, they officially sacrificed the religious liberty of all future American patriots in the name of keeping the world safe for freedom against totalitarianism.
Perhaps the reason that so many Americans are content to allow the wall of separation between church and state to crumble now is that they support the particular religious belief that the state is favoring - namely, belief in God. This is a dangerous precedent to set, for there is no assurance that we will always be so comfortable with the belief on the other side of the wall as we are now. Where God stands now in our government's favor, in the future may stand a dogma that isn't as popular. By giving up the protection from government intervention in religion, a time may come where their own beliefs are not those the government is endorsing.
(Anthony Dick is Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at adick@cavalierdaily.com.)
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