"One nation, ... indivisible, ..."

[mdlbear]

It was 1954, and I was in second grade, when the words ``under God'' were slipped into the Pledge of Allegiance, changing it from an expression of patriotism to a profession of a faith in which my family did not believe.  Even then I was uncomfortable, and I have always stood in silence during those two words.   I was pleased beyond measure to read, in today's paper, a quote from a Buddhist teacher saying that he has done the same.

You don't have to believe in a deity to love your country, and even to respect its enthusiastic but often-misguided leaders.  You don't have to believe in a tablet of laws personally dictated by an old man in the sky to have a moral code, to believe that lying and killing and oppressing the poor are wrong, to believe that one should treat your neighbors with friendship, and your enemies with fairness and respect.

I do not expect our miserable excuse for a Supreme Court to agree with this position; a Supreme Court that has just ruled that subjecting all students to drug tests is not an ``unreasonable search'', and that school voucher that divert public funds to religious schools are not a violation of the separation of Church and State can hardly be expected to respect the words of the Constitution over its own increasingly-conservative agenda.  

I am delighted with the 9th Circuit's decision, but have no hope whatever that it will endure.  So I and a few others will no doubt continue to endure those two words in respectful but uncomfortable silence.

Comments

Re: "One nation, ... indivisible, ..."

[rowanf.livejournal.com]

Very eloquently said. I wish the majority would recognize how oppressive those words can be. Good for the Ninth Circuit panel. I wish it stood a chance of lasting. Some congressyahoo is already talking about an "under God" *constitutional amendment*. Oh please! *sigh*e