03/25/2004 Entry: "My Thoughts on the Pledge Kerfuffle"
Posted by Maynard @ 11:21 AM MST

My Thoughts on the Pledge Kerfuffle

Via The Corner:

Justice Souter's question for Dr. Newdow was whether, even assuming that schoolchildren were being asked "as a technical matter" to make a personal religious affirmation, the recitation had become in practice "so tepid, so diluted, so far, let's say, from a compulsory prayer that in fact it should be, in effect, beneath the constitutional radar." Was it the case, Justice Souter asked, that by "the way we live and think and work in schools and in civic society in which the pledge is made, that whatever is distinctively religious as an affirmation is simply lost?"

Dr. Newdow replied: "That is a view that you may choose to take and the majority of Americans may choose to take. But it's not the view I take, and when I see the flag and I think of pledging allegiance, it's like I'm getting slapped in the face every time, bam, you know, `this is a nation under God, your religious belief system is wrong.' "

Souter brings up a very good point. If we accept ceremony for the sake of ceremony, we lose the motivation for performing the ceremony in the first place. In that regard, the Pledge of Allegiance is today no more than a poem of sorts, lacking any meaning whatsoever. Dr. Newdow, for all his faults, is trying to find meaning in the Pledge, and he does. That his suit flies in the face of the first 180 years of the Constitutional republic and its traditions is beside the point. He is right in arguing that words have meaning (as they should), but Souter is also right in pointing out that our society has become so tepid, perhaps because of meaningless repitition, that the words have lost meaning.

This case is about, really, two things. First, at what point does speaking something with your mouth become a conscious affirmation of what you believe? Second, does the Congress, in an effort to validate and reaffirm the past history of the nation in acknowledging God, have a right to add two words to someone else's writing?

I believe speaking something is an affirmation of your beliefs when you say it of your own free will and you understand what your are saying. I also believe that the Congress has every right to be resolved to reaffirm our past commitments to relying on God for our continued freedom, unity, and justice. They do not, however, have a right to coerce someone to say it.

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