{"id":4605,"date":"2010-03-13T00:05:15","date_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2010-03-13T00:05:15","modified_gmt":"2010-03-13T08:05:15","slug":"guest-blog-from-jon-under-god-and-the-pledge-of-allegiance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/guest-blog-from-jon-under-god-and-the-pledge-of-allegiance\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post From Jon: Does “Under God” Belong in the Pledge of Allegiance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Patriotic
Patriotic holiday gifts: The American flag is spread at a Warriors basketball game in Oakland, California. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Jon Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

We were sitting at breakfast on Friday morning when Barbara pointed out a story in that morning’s San Francisco Chronicle.\u00a0 A three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court had ruled, 2-1, that including the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance does not violate the Constitution’s so-called “Establishment Clause.”<\/p>\n

The “Establishment Clause” — as you know — is the first of the ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights.\u00a0 It states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”<\/p>\n

My God, I thought, this latest decision doesn’t make any sense.\u00a0\u00a0 After all, many if not most of our public schools encourage children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance aloud each morning.\u00a0 And when that daily chant includes the words “under God,” aren’t we indoctrinating our children with a firm religious belief?\u00a0 Like it or not, there are millions of Americans who don’t believe in God, or who have other very sincere concepts of religion that find this wording objectionable.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine the outcry from certain folks on the far, far right if the wording were to say: “one nation under ‘the Gods,’\u00a0\u00a0or “one nation under ‘Zeus,’ or “one nation under ‘Allah’ “?<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Chronicle story went on to report that Judge Carlos T. Bea justified the decision by explaining:\u00a0 “The Pledge of Allegiance serves to unite our vast nation through the proud recitation of some of the ideals upon which our Republic was founded and for which we continue to strive: one Nation under God–the Founding Fathers’ belief that the people of this nation are endowed by their Creator.”<\/p>\n

Judge Carlos T. Bea might be surprised to learn a fact about the Constitution.\u00a0 The word “God” or “deity” or any similar term does not appear – even once – in the entire Constitution.\u00a0 Why? \u00a0That was not by accident.\u00a0 It was because the Founding Fathers were strong believers in the separation of church and state.<\/p>\n

They knew from personal experience the dangers posed by allowing religion or the church to meddle in the affairs of the state.<\/p>\n

I need to make a slight confession here.\u00a0 One of the reasons I find the inclusion of “under God” so tacky is that I’m a child of the 1940’s and 1950s’.\u00a0 I clearly remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before<\/em> the God phrase was added in 1954.\u00a0 To this day, I find the rhythm of today’s Pledge a tad off key because of the imposition of that phrase.<\/p>\n

I also remember that “under God” was added during the so-called McCarthy era, an period of national paranoia.\u00a0 One of its primary purpose was to prove that God-fearing Americans were clearly superior to those godless communists on the other side of the world.<\/p>\n

I’ve always felt that America is better than that, and that we don’t need to chant about our nation and God in order to prove our system is the best the world has to offer.\u00a0 \u00a0Because it really is.<\/p>\n

(Note: The rambunctious Scottville Clown Band<\/a> turns 100 this year.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Does<\/a><\/p>\n

Jon was shocked when a Federal Appeals Court ruled that including “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance did not violate the Constitution’s Establishment Clause. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[533,34,534,504,535,536,537],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","tag-american-flag","tag-dont-miss","tag-jon-newhall-post","tag-pentwater","tag-pledge-of-allegiance","tag-scottville","tag-under-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}