Yep. I went there.
I love the Pledge. I love my country. Two days after high school graduation I was standing at attention with my head shaved and my sphincter clenched as a DI roared at me. That’s how much I love my country.
But “Under God” should not be there. It just shouldn’t, and if you really do support what America stands for, you’ll see that.
I’ll outline the reasons:
1. It’s not in the original.
The Pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minster, and even he didn’t see the need to put in “under God.” The original text is “I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
“Under God” was added in 1954, during the Cold War, at a time that gave us other great ideas like “Duck and Cover,” McCarthyism and sending “advisors” to Vietnam.
So don’t get all irate that we’re bucking tradition by taking it out. The men who stormed Omaha Beach and raised the flag on Iwo Jima did not say “under God” when they recited the pledge. They seem to have done OK without it.
2. It pretty much violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
I’ll let you guys go check. Just find the Second Amendment (you all know that one) and look right above it. And there’s eight more under it in the Bill of Rights. Wild, I know.
Anyway, right there in the Constitution you can find the clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
Which means, basically, that the US will not have an “official” state religion, or prevent me, if I’m a Buddhist for example, from practicing my own religion by, oh, I dunno, making me swear fealty to your God.
So, yeah, I think it’s fairly clear, you don’t get to insert your God of choice into the Pledge for everybody. Liberty and justice for all, bitches.
Know your Constitution if you’re gonna yell about it.
3. The “Under God” part kinda invalidates the “For all” part.
We should strive for Liberty and Justice for all. Not single out and persecute groups because they follow a different religion. Kinda why some of our ancestors left the Old Country in the first place. Especially those guys in funny hats who founded Massachusetts and then did something with tea and a harbor…It’ll come to you if you think.
Know your history.
4. Other oaths of service seem to do OK without it.
When a young man, fresh out of high school in 1986, stood at the Military Entrance Processing Center and repeated the oath to defend this nation from all foes both foreign and domestic, the Marine administering it finished by saying: “You may add the phrase ‘so help me, God’ if you so choose.”
So, if the freaking Marine Corps thinks you can mean what you say and serve your country without the help of the great Sky God, I think that should be good enough for Mrs Mulcahy’s first grade class.
Although, if I had to go back in time, and pick Parris Island or St Joseph’s Elementary to repeat, I’d probably think real hard for a minute and then line up to get my head shaved again.