Congressman Rabaut:
From the root of atheism stems the evil weed of communism and its branches of materialism and political dictatorship. Unless we are willing to affirm our belief in the existence of God and His creator-creature relation to man, we drop man himself to the significance of a grain of sand and open the floodgates to tyranny and oppression.
Congressman Bolton:
The significant import of our action today . . . is that we are officially recognizing once again this Nation’s adherence to our belief in a divine spirit, and that henceforth millions of our citizens will be acknowledging this belief every time they pledge allegiance to our flag.
To put it bluntly, no judge familiar with the history of the Pledge could in good conscience believe, as today’s majority purports to do, that the words “under God” were inserted into the Pledge for any purpose other than an explicitly and predominantly religious one: “to recognize the power and the universality of God in our pledge of allegiance;” to “acknowledge the dependence of our people, and our Government upon the moral direction and the restraints of religion,” 100 Cong. Rec. 7590-91 (1954); and to indoctrinate schoolchildren in the belief that God exists, id. at 5915, 6919. Nor could any judge familiar with controlling Supreme Court precedent seriously deny that carrying out such an indoctrination in a public school classroom unconstitutionally forces many young children either to profess a religious belief antithetical to their personal views or to declare themselves through their silence or nonparticipation to be protesting nonbelievers, thereby subjecting themselves to hostility and ridicule.
Nope. Hogwash. According to the majority it means that we have a limited form of government. Yes, because "Under God" conveys to "Godless Communists" who are "Atheistic" and "Atheist Americans is a contradiction in terms" we are to take the fact that people who expressly said this added the words "Under God" to the pledge to convey how limited our government is.
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/03/11/05-17257.pdf
You know, school is hard enough without being outed as an atheist by a silly recited pledge hijacked by religious fervor in the 1950s to force children to be told that their parents beliefs are wrong and that God and patriotism go hand in hand.
To recite the pledge is not to describe the United States; instead it is to swear allegiance to the values for which the flag stands: unity, indivisibility, liberty, justice and -- since 1954 -- monotheism-- 9th Circuit decision in Newdow v. Elk Ridge
2 comments:
"To recite the pledge is not to describe the United States; instead it is to swear allegiance to the values for which the flag stands: unity, indivisibility, liberty, justice and -- since 1954 -- monotheism"
And how does this not go against the establishment clause? I understand that it says "congress shall make no law" and that we're not talking specifically about congress making laws here, but the spirit of that clause is clearly that there is to be no established official religious stance in US government. This decision CLEARLY goes against that spirit. This guy is basically admitting that that passage was added to the pledge to establish the US as a monotheistic country. Atheism aside, not all religions are monotheistic. Establishing the US as a monotheistic country marginalizes not only non-believers, but Buddhists or believers in polytheism. I wish people would stop fucking playing games with this stuff and be adults.
That's from the Elk Ridge case, not Rio Linda. In Elk Ridge the court decided it was unconstitutional in Rio Linda they made up a bunch of nonsense and viewed the pledge in it's entirety rather than just the two words inserted and insisted that that "Under God" had everything to do with limited government somehow.
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