Psyche, Science, and Society

Pledge for freedom, not God

September 30th, 2007

When I wa i school, I sometimes got in trouble for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I couldn’t understand how we could have “one nation under God” when, I thought, there was no God. Further, a country that had gone through a civil war hardly sounded indivisible. And it didn’t seem to me that Sacco and Vanzetti had gotten “freedom and justice for all.”   As I had been taught not to lie, I refused to utter the false words. Some teachers were outraged, and others amused. In those days I was always alone in my “protest.”

Now I read in Effect Measure in the Sunday Freethinker Sermonette that 50 students at Boulder High School have walked out, and will continue walking out every Thursday to protest the pledge. They object to the forced religion, and to its ignoring of the need for respect for the diversity of our population and of the fundamental rights upon which our country claims to be founded. I salute them.

As Revere quotes from the Denver Post:

About 50 Boulder High School students walked out of class Thursday to protest the daily reading of the Pledge of Allegiance and recited their own version, omitting “one nation, under God.”

The students say the phrase violates the constitutional separation of church and state.

They also say the daily reading of the pledge over the school public address system at the start of the second class takes away from education time and is ignored or mocked by some students.

A state law passed in 2004 requires schools to offer the opportunity to recite the pledge each day but does not require students to participate.

The protesting students, members of the Student Worker Club, want administrators to hold the pledge reading in the auditorium during each of the school’s two lunch periods for any students who want to participate.

Otherwise, they said, they plan to walk out each Thursday when the pledge is read and recite their version, which omits the reference to God and adds allegiance to constitutional rights, diversity and freedom, among other things.

But go to Effect Measure and see Revere’s suggestion for a better alternative Pledge.

Entry Filed under: Culture, Education, Free Speech, Human Rights