the pledge

[cellio]

I objected to the pledge of allegiance from a fairly early age. Or rather, I objected to being required to say it every day in school. I had problems with "under God", but more importantly to me at that time, I had problems making that kind of commitment. I remember asking how a 10-year-old could be expected to make such an open-ended promise. I got told to just do it.

Some teachers (and maybe my parents?) told me to just cover my heart with my hand and stand there silently. This was dishonest, though; I didn't think I should be giving the impression that I was saying it when I wasn't. But mostly that's what I did, because I wasn't aggressive enough to really push the matter. I valued my grades and I was told they would suffer if I made a big deal out of this.

So I don't really buy the argument that no one is forced to say it so it's not coercive. Of course it's coercive; many things done in the name of public education are. This doesn't mean it's automatically wrong; there are areas where I not only accept but expect coercion in school, such as to instill minimum standards for interpersonal interactions. But I think it's silly to say that the pledge isn't coercive when it often is.

I do object to this particular coercion, though. And beyond the general objection, I have a problem with "under God" being included in anything that's required (or nearly required). It's not just the pledge, either; I'm uncomfortable when being "sworn in" (I say "affirm") as a juror ("...so help you God"), and I was startled when I was asked to swear an oath ("...before Almighty God") when applying for a marriage license. All of these are inappropriate, and all of them are functionally if not technically coercive.

I am not an athiest. I believe in God. And the God I believe in shouldn't be trivialized in this way. The hordes of school children who say these words every day do not, for the most part, have any real understanding of what they're saying. If that's not taking God in vain, I don't know what is.

And it is not for the state to give some religious views precedence over others. This isn't a constitutional argument; that only restricts Congress. This is a moral, or perhaps ethical, objection. No one has a pipeline to The One Truth here; what is right for me is not right for you, and what is right for you is not right for me. This does not change if you get yourself appointed as school superintendant, or governor, or president. (In this case, you don't even have the weight of historic precedent; "under God" is a MacCarthyism, not original text, and I gather that the author of the original would be displeased if he were capable of rendering an opinion.)

From what I understand of the court ruling (not being a lawyer or scholar), the ruling is goofy in one way: they seem to have said that this particular text is forbidden in the abstract. Forbidding "under God" in an arbitrary piece of text is as offensive as requiring it; the problem, either way, is in how the text is used. The judge who said that there's a problem with the athiest's kid even hearing "under God" is way out in left field, assuming he hasn't been quoted out of context. What they should have done is to forbid schools and the government from requiring anyone to take this pledge as it is currently written, and left it at that.

One of these days maybe I'll get around to school prayer. :-)

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of what you've said, and thanks for a nice, thoughtful piece. My main objection to the ruling -- which I agree with you is correct insofar as it recognizes the coercion issue and incorrect insofar as it goes into goofy stuff about having to listen -- is that it flies in the face of established legal precedent, and is obviously about to be overturned in its own right. Overturning law is a Big Deal. It is not a good thing to do except in the gravest of necessity, it destabilized the legal system, it makes the landmark cases we rely on to protect our rights that much easier to overturn themselves, because the standard is no longer "uphold precedent at nearly any cost" but "overturn anything five justices don't happen to like." This was already happening to a large extent recently and it's frightened me, but even in this climate, we could get Scalia and Thomas voting for a liberal position on a death penalty issue because they could not in all intellectual honesty say that to do otherwise would be compatible with a case the court had decided two years before. Even if they didn't like it -- either the original two years ago which passed or this one which they supported -- they backed it because they would not oppose precedent. The 9th Circuit has just opposed the precedent on the subject of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools big time and doesn't seem to care, and the full Circuit panel will probably overrule them; if not, the Supreme Court will. I do not want to throw around overrules that easily. It does nobody any good except the demagogues who *want* the law to change with every shift in the wind.

overturning law

[cellio]

This is an excellent point.

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

The 9th Circuit has the worst track record (even accounting for its size) in terms of getting overturned. There's an interesting discussion of it in the article Does the Supreme Court Hate the 9th Circuit? (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/amar/20020419.html) on Findlaw's Writ; it's a co-authored article and the authors (IMO) waste a lot of time in friendly sniping at each other, but it does put the current situation into some useful context.

[jeannegrrl.livejournal.com]

While I don't have a personal objection to "Under God" as part of our pledge, yours is one of the few arguments against that makes any sort of sense to me...