I Pledge
The Jollyblogger has an excellent post on the recent decision from a California (where else?) judge declaring the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional in public schools. The post has links to some good debate.
This matter has not escaped me. I have been mulling this over, and I am starting to plan a multi-part series on the larger topic of the separation of church and state.
This will be coming in the next several weeks. I need to do some thinking on this, and organize my thoughts.
Till then, I'll leave you with the version of the Pledge the courts say we can teach to our school children, having already established that teaching them to honor their parents, and not to steal, lie, or murder is also beyond the pale, and just one step this shy of turning kids into jackbooted brownshirts.
I pledge fanatical devotion to Cindy Sheehan
And to the ACLU for which she stands
Two nations (or so says John Edwards)
Under no particular Amorphous Self-Defined Spirituality (and if you hold to none that is okay fine too)
Divisible into two camps: we tolerant, educated moderates, and those frothing Jesusland denizens,
With our liberties threatened daily, especially our library habits those Patriots want to broadcast to the world,
And, ideally, Shrub herbicide for all
-----
Blackfive recounts a touching moment watching his son recite the Pledge, and urges us to protect the Pledge.
This matter has not escaped me. I have been mulling this over, and I am starting to plan a multi-part series on the larger topic of the separation of church and state.
This will be coming in the next several weeks. I need to do some thinking on this, and organize my thoughts.
Till then, I'll leave you with the version of the Pledge the courts say we can teach to our school children, having already established that teaching them to honor their parents, and not to steal, lie, or murder is also beyond the pale, and just one step this shy of turning kids into jackbooted brownshirts.
I pledge fanatical devotion to Cindy Sheehan
And to the ACLU for which she stands
Two nations (or so says John Edwards)
Under no particular Amorphous Self-Defined Spirituality (and if you hold to none that is okay fine too)
Divisible into two camps: we tolerant, educated moderates, and those frothing Jesusland denizens,
With our liberties threatened daily, especially our library habits those Patriots want to broadcast to the world,
And, ideally, Shrub herbicide for all
-----
Blackfive recounts a touching moment watching his son recite the Pledge, and urges us to protect the Pledge.
5 Comments:
At Mon Sep 19, 06:03:00 PM, johngrif said…
Let me add a bit to your considerations.
Until the late 40's, the term 'wall between' didn't exist, some conservatives argue. Below is a provocative look at the 'people' who gave us the term, namely the Supreme Court judges of the 1940's.
SEE "Unreasonable Observers" as a review of Hitchcock's "The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life" at First Things. com.
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0506/reviews/hittinger.html
Professor Hittinger, Univ of Tulsa, tells us what caused the judges to rewrite past practice: "But beginning in the 1940's, the personal faith of the justices began to influence how they would rule in cases." Or, as his review continues, their lack of faith.
This is an interesting thread, since recently a conservative symposium in the Upper Midwest offered a Kansas State professor examining a forbidden topic, namely the Christian faith of our recent Presidents.
The professor was quite persuasive as he talked about personal faith and its place in the Presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. They had no time for the separation of church and state.
Hittinger's review suggests that
the work of today's courts on the subject of religion might be seen as story of believer vs unbeliever. The latter seeking to erase the civilization of the first and impose a European style secular state.
A revisionist concept completely opposed to 200 years of American belief and practice.
At Mon Sep 19, 11:04:00 PM, Jeff said…
Thanks for the info, John. This is the kind of thing I do want to include. You're right, it wasn't until the 1940s when thinking about the "wall" started to change. I do want to look at arguments given for those changes, and your material is helpful.
At Tue Sep 20, 09:38:00 AM, Jeremy Pierce said…
I believe the expression "wall of separation between church and state" is from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote. He certainly didn't think of it the way liberals on this issue do today, but I don't think we should try to establish that by saying the expression is recent if indeed it turns out not to be recent.
At Tue Sep 20, 09:48:00 AM, Jeff said…
Yes, the expression did originate in a letter by Thomas Jefferson. (The letter can be read here.)
I don't plan on looking at just the meaning of that phrase in Jefferson's day, and in the 1940s and on.
I hope to look at what was meant by "establishment of religion" when the Constitution was written, what the writers had in mind, and whether or not they really intended that religion not be present in public life. (Such as the Ten Commandments hanging on a school wall, or on a granite slab outside a courthouse.)
At Mon Sep 26, 11:41:00 AM, Tony B said…
I can't remember the specifics on this, either, but I remember reading that until the "incorporation doctrine" of the 14th Amendment began applying the Bill of Rights to the states and not just the national government that in the early days of our country that at least one state did have an official religion. I don't remember which one, however and don't have the time to refresh my memory, but I always found that interesting.
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