Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Will Hear Pledge of Allegiance Case
Decaffeinated Jedi writes "As reported in this CNN.com article, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next year (most likely in June) involving whether public schools can lead students in a 'voluntary' recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. At issue in this case is whether the inclusion of the phrase 'under God' in the pledge constitutes an establishment of religion on the part of the state and an infringement on students' religious liberty when it is recited in the public school setting. This case comes to the Supreme Court as an appeal of the June 2002 ruling made by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--a decision that led to one of the most active stories in Slashdot history." The CNN article's emphasis on voluntariness -- "whether schoolchildren can be allowed to recite the Pledge voluntarily" -- is grossly misleading, almost propagandistic. Most states have laws requiring the pledge to be recited every day as a class activity, and these are the laws in question. In theory students shouldn't be punished for failing to recite along with the rest of the class (due to a previous Supreme Court decision). No state has a law prohibiting anyone from reciting the pledge voluntarily, whenever they want to.
What I don't understand is why christians in general would get so upset when we want to take one line out to include all. Simply put I'm sure they would be as offended if we were to begin saying something like "under Bhudda" or "under no god" as some ppl are about saying "under god" in the first place. Times have changed, with them go the rules
The original generic sig.
What does this have to do with online rights?
What does it have to do with anything Nerds are interested in?
It seems more like a topic for a civil libertarian blog.
I'm not saying the government is right or wrong. I'm just asserting this is off topic. Michael, can't you find another website to pound your drums on?
A Good Intro to NetBS
Given the sometimes cruel nature of peer pressure and cliques in public schools, do students really have that much of a viable choice in this matter--or do they risk being labeled as "anti-American" and treated as a social outcast if they decide to sit out on the recitation of the pledge? I'd argue that there's more to it from a social standpoint than students just not saying the pledge if they don't want to.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
It's always amazing to me how much people think that God needs defending.
Your relationship with God is the only important thing in the universe, and you don't need a government to tell you how to have a good relationship with your deity.
And I don't need the government telling me how to have a good relationship with your deity. And you don't need the government telling you how to have a good relationship with my deity.
Our country is also strong enough to not have to declare that it exists through God's will. We made it, not God. The prophet George Washington didn't see a burning bush that implored him to lead his soldiers across the Delaware.
Our nation, like every human institution, is fallible. The more we bring God into it, the less we respect him, our nation, and ourselves.
God might help you make your personal choices, but you make bad decisions, too. Giving God the credit for your successes, and taking personal blame for your failures is dehumanizing to you and everyone else, and it leads to both a sense of false security (in your bad decisions), and false insecurity (questioning your relationship with God, just because you messed up.)
P.S. - if this comment pissed you off, then contemplate living in a country that forces you to worship a God that you don't believe in. Now, recognize that's exactly what you're asking other people to do in America. It's not YOUR country - it's OUR country. And the only way we can all get along, is to keep separate our personal and political worlds.
You have your personal relationship with your God, I have my personal relationship with my God - and the laws of this land should not give either one of us preferential treatment.
God != America
Education is the silver bullet.
What everyone must keep in mind is the First Amendment:
I as an individual can profess my religious (non-)affiliations as much as I want. However, agents of the state cannot endorse or reject a religion while acting as said agents. Using school property to communicate a message with a distinctly theistic slant ("one nation, under God") is unconstitutional (again, see the Santa Fe v. Doe ruling). The state can't say one way or another about god (much in the way that Science should remain agnostic barring distinct evidence one way or another) unless it's in discussing religion in a neutral context. This doesn't mean that teachers can't pray, be religious, nor students; rather, you can't use public property or act on behalf of the government in a coercive way when doing it.
She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.
It's not the original. The original pledge had no reference to god, as has been said several times already, it was added in the 1950s.
I'm not a pledge expert -- that info came in while I was posting. Thank you for the info.
That's a fine theory, if not for the fact that that's not the original. The phrase "under God" was added during the 50s as part of McCarthyism's attack on godless communism. So, given that fact, I assume that you will be supporting the return of the Pledge to it's "original" godless version?
Again, I didn't know that, and yes, I do absolutely support the return of the pledge to its original godless version. More importantly, though (and this was my original point, and it stands), whether or not the "official" pledge becomes godless or not, there needs to be a godless version available for whatever purposes require a pledge today.
everything in moderation
First, atheism is a category, not a religion. Atheism has no dogmas, no creeds, no forms of worship, no heresies, and no principles. To be an atheist, you simply cannot believe that there is a God. Any principle you try to add to that (and it certainly does need more in order to become a belief system, much less a religion) requires a new word.
Atheism has no position on morality (except so far as an atheist cannot logically follow the "divine command" principle of morality). It has no opinion on abortion. It has no opinion on evolution. Atheism does not require belief in the Big Bang, or moral relativism, or the existence of the soul. Given non-belief in a God, some positions appear more likely than others, but none are required. I can be a pro-life, anti-evolution, moral objectivist who believes that he will be reincarnated as Steven Segal after he dies, and still be an atheist.
Glad that's cleared up.
Now, if "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all" somehow supports the atheist "religion," what else is it implicitly endorsing through its silence? Well, it doesn't say anything against child-mulching machines, so it must be implying that they should be built and used to keep down the population. It doesn't say "one nation, with no nuclear strikes called in on Lindon, Utah," so the pledge is implicitly endorsing the annihilation of SCO's headquarters. To which I say, "Rock on!"
"Under God" doesn't belong in the pledge, and removing it simply remedies an inappropriate use of government power to promote a sectarian agenda.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!