What is even more damning to the historical argument is that ‘under God’ was not added to the Pledge until 1954. Google it up, folks. The original Pledge, written in 1892 by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy, had no mention of God. I hope everyone’s eyes didn’t just fall out of their sockets, because there is more. The Sons of the American Revolution and the Knights of Columbus popularized the addition of ‘under God’. The motion to officially add it to the Pledge was hammered home by George MacPherson Docherty, a Presbyterian minister. President Eisenhower, a convert to Presbyterianism, took the matter to heart. From stem to stern the whole movement for the addition of the obviously 1st Amendment-breaking ‘under God’ was pushed along by Christian agitators. These Christians, maliciously or not, robbed the citizens of the United States of the very freedom that allowed them to practice their faith without government endorsement.
So obviously all the endless prattling about ‘under God’ evoking our history is bunk. Even a child can tell the whole matter is a cover story, which leaves all of us sane people (and I am not excluding religious folks here – you can be a Christian and know it is wrong to have ‘In God We Trust’ on our money) to try earnestly question the 9th Circuit over this ruling. Thank goodness our alarm was anticipated by Judge Bea who, in a ham-handed rebuttal to the utterly sane criticism that using the term God might, in fact, be an endorsement of religion, wrote, “not every mention of God or religion by our government or at the government’s direction is a violation of the Establishment Clause.” What planet does this guy live on (Mormons are disqualified from answering that one)? How does the inclusion of God not constitute an endorsement of the existence of said God?
The standards of teaching Constitutional law must be slipping. Either that or we’ve accidentally ended up in a time machine and landed in 1958. Colored folks better read the signs over water fountains very carefully. Commies are everywhere, and they’re trying to steal our souls.
Thankfully there is some bit of sanity, however small, in the 9th Circuit. The court’s lone dissenting voice, Judge Reinhart, wrote that, “the state-directed, teacher-led daily recitation in public schools of the amended ‘under God’ version of the Pledge of Allegiance . . . violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution.” Holy Cow! There’s my iPhone! We’re back in the 21st century. Maybe there’s hope yet.
1 Comment
Cheers to the 9th Circuit.