A step forward to a brighter future, I hope.
The reasoning behind returning the Pledge to its original, post-Cold War text, is quite simple: acknowledgement of a deity is an inherently religious act, and leading students in such an act is promoting religion. Not only that, it is promoting a specific kind of religion: American Theism. This ideology, nonsectarian in nature, links the actions and decisions of America with divine approval; specifically, that of the Christian or Jewish (or, a long shot, Muslim) God. America is 'under God', and America's actions and fate are guided by a partial divine hand. Thus, if you disagree with the war in Iraq or the president, you must hate God. If you don't believe in God, you are not a citizen (as Bush has implied on several occassions).
Above all, the Christian Right vigorously champions this fight. The Pledge is their symbol of Christian dominance over the government. As fundamentalists believe that they are the only True Christians (verifiable by their talk of 'people of faith believe X'), any dissent from either their group (which = Xtianity to them) or the government (which = them, which = Xtianity) is countered by accusations of atheism or Satanism. The Pledge is the crux, because it equates religion with patriotism. By this sequence, anyone who disagrees with the Christian Right is branded anti-American.
> Pledge Unconstitutional at Public Schools
Fixed headline.
This isn't about the content of the pledge itself but rather the requirement for students to cite it at public schools.
In most states, I think there are laws stating that students don't have to say it. At my school in NJ, we weren't required to say the Pledge, but we had to, and I quote, "sit or stand respectfully and remove your hats."
I think that's at least a good start, but frankly, the whole concept of a public school, one where no religion or religious concept is to be favored over another, is basically moot if the Judeo-Christian-Islamic monotheistic God is stated to be the singular unifying principle of the state-based educational system.
If it's a religious school, let 'em say the shema, the religious Pledge, Allahu Akhbar, or whatever they want. But unless they're prepared to include every single religion in "under God," they should just kill the Pledge entirely. It really is just some patriotic garbage, but you shouldn't have to say it, and if you aren't Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, you shouldn't have to feel the pressure of your religion being brushed aside publicly.
>>5
I agree. It was placed in all schools sometime in the early Cold War, so as to ideologically fight Communism; ironic, becuase it just brought us closer to the opposite, Fascism..
#2 you are correct, however there is more to the theology.
For isntance, Buddhists and Shintoists and Pagans and Wiccans and Gnostics do not believe in exactly one god. Pagans, Shintoists, Gnostics and Wiccans all believe in more than one god. Buddhists, Agnostics and Atheists believe in less than one god.
But the pledge says under GOD. note the singular. If you don't believe in exactly one god, you are less American than monotheists. And better still, since monotheism is strongly implied, the only god that Americans pledge that "America is under" is the only god there is has a special plan for just the USA. So America is better than all nations by default.
meh, at least we don't worship Caeser yet.