FW: [FedUp] God and the Pledge

[Pepi Plowman]

To my mind, the Catholic Church (the one that evolved
from the original (which was Jewish, I believe)) and
its successors, including, by extension, Christians in
toto, is one BIG Trojan horse carrying a credo that
has been doing NOTHING BUT trying to control the
masses since the Nicean conclave, if not before. 
Isn't that what religion is all about?  Hey, we're
used to having our mind fucked with--what is so
surprising that someone else should try it!
pep
--- Frances Morey <frances_morey@excite.com> wrote:
>  This is interesting in the light of the dry drunk
> post by Henry Jackson. If the Supremes re-adopt the
> re-invented Pledge from 1954, so goes the nation, I
> fear. The neocons are using the churches like Trojan
> horses to mind control the masses. It is going to be
> an aweful uphill battle to win in November. I'm
> praying that it will happen.
> Frances
> 
> 

> ATTACHMENT part 2 message/rfc822 name=FW: [FedUp]
God and the Pledge
> From: "Beverly Veltman" <bveltman@hotmail.com>
> To: bveltman@hotmail.com
> Subject: FW: [FedUp] God and the Pledge
> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:13:55 +0000
> 

---------------------------------

I know that it is long but it is an interesting read
if you hang in there.

B






bveltman@hotmail.com 



>From: Mark Boyden 
>Reply-To: fed_up_with_status_quo@yahoogroups.com 
>To: fed_up_with_status_quo@yahoogroups.com 
>Subject: [FedUp] God and the Pledge 
>Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:10:17 -0600 
> 
>"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional
constellation, it 
>is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe
what shall be 
>orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other
matters of 
>opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act
their faith 
>therein." 
> 
> 
>----------------------------------------------------------------------

>http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=18182 
> 
>The Battle Over the Pledge 
> 
>By Elisabeth Sifton, The Nation 
>March 21, 2004 
> 
>The loss of precision in spoken or written language
is not, I 
>suppose, the worst problem we face, compared with so
many other 
>distressing developments in our national life. But
the consequences 
>can include real political harm. Take, for example, a
pesky case on 
>which the Supreme Court will hear arguments on March
24: Elk Grove 
>Unified School District v. Michael A. Newdow, which
has generated a 
>great deal of linguistic chaos. 
> 
>In the summer of 2002 Michael Newdow, a pro se
defendant with 
>several bees in his bonnet about family law, religion
and 
>government, won a 2-to-1 victory in the Ninth Circuit
Court of 
>Appeals, where Judge Alfred Goodwin agreed with him
that schoolroom 
>recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, with the 1954
addition of 
>"under God" to its text, violates the establishment
clause of the 
>First Amendment. The Ninth Circuit then amended this
decision; the 
>school district appealed; the circuit court refused
to rehear the 
>case in a murky fluster of judicial action that
showed its members 
>at loggerheads with one another and with another
Pledge ruling in 
>the Eleventh Circuit; and judges delivered papers
"concurring 
>partly" and "dissenting partly" with their
colleagues. The Rehnquist 
>Supreme Court itself is partly to blame for the
muddle, since it's 
>been handing down divided, inconclusive decisions, in
this as in 
>other areas, for years. 
> 
>I'm only an amateur of constitutional history and the
Pledge 
>controversy, but you don't have to be an expert to
notice how 
>language gets misused in Newdow. Lawyers, judges and
commentators 
>carry on, as they have for decades, without there
being much 
>agreement on the meaning of the words they contest or
interpret – 
>"Establishment," say, or "Pledge." "Prayer." "God."
Or "under." 
>Clouds of sanctimonious verbiage billow in the public
space – from 
>ardent atheists like the plaintiff and his
supporters, and from 
>hypocritical Christian Republicans who are eager to
have this case 
>heard at the highest level. 
> 
>To cut through the semantic fog, we can start by
asking, what is the 
>Pledge of Allegiance and where did it come from?
Grammar school is 
>where you're supposed to learn not only how to write
and speak (the 
>grammar part) but the words and texts of our shared
civic life. No 
>surprise, then, that it was a schoolteacher, Francis
Bellamy, who in 
>1892 arranged to have children observe the 400th
anniversary of 
>Columbus's landing with a little ceremony that
centered on a "pledge 
>of allegiance" to the Stars and Stripes that he had
written. (It 
>nowhere mentioned God.) Bellamy, chairman of a
committee of state 
>superintendents of education, was able to insure that
his 
>mini-liturgy of American triumphalism was installed
as a regular 
>feature of public-school life. 
> 
>A utopian socialist like his cousin the novelist
Edward Bellamy, he 
>composed the Pledge, he explained, in "an intensive
communing with 
>salient points of our national history, from the
Declaration of 
>Independence onwards; with the makings of the
Constitution...with 
>the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of
the people." He 
>had wanted to segue from "one nation indivisible"
("we must specify 
>that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used
to repeat in 
>their great speeches") to "the historic slogan of the
French 
>Revolution which meant so much to Jefferson and his
friends, 
>'Liberty, equality, fraternity'" – but he realized
one couldn't 
>celebrate equality in American life: that "would be
too fanciful, 
>too many thousands of years off in realization."
Regretfully, he 
>omitted the middle term, though he thought the other
two were safe 
>and sound: "we as a nation do stand square on the
doctrine of 
>liberty and justice for all." (Did he think that
justice insured 
>"fraternity"?) Certainly his bighearted words express
a more 
>attractive national ideal than flags have sometimes
inspired 
>elsewhere. 
> 
>Bellamy was well connected, and soon his Pledge of
Allegiance was 
>being recited by students all across the country.
Over the years, as 
>US soldiers followed the flag into foreign wars in
Cuba, the 
>Philippines and France, and as millions of Asians,
Slavs, Italians, 
>Greeks and Jews flooded into a once primarily
Anglo-Saxon nation, 
>militaristic flag fever grew, along with allegiance
to the Pledge. 
>By the mid-1920s, when nativist opposition to new
immigrants 
>prevailed in the National Origins Act, shutting the
door to many 
>nationalities and imposing strict quotas, a new
Federal Flag Code 
>explained how the flag was to be treated and the
Pledge of 
>Allegiance to it recited: the rules of a new secular
religion. 
> 
>Bellamy's Pledge offended various groups from the
start: Jehovah's 
>Witnesses and Mennonites, among others, objected, as
any of us 
>might, to the idolatrous worship of the symbols of
state power, and 
>believed, as any religious person might, that
saluting the flag 
>contradicted their declared fidelity to God alone, a
spiritual 
>commitment that the First Amendment's "free exercise"
clause 
>protects. 
> 
>Yet, as Justice Felix Frankfurter noted – when the
Supreme Court 
>ruled in 1940 that requiring students to salute the
flag and recite 
>the Pledge was not unconstitutional – dozens of state
legislatures 
>thought the flag ceremony was a good way to instill
national loyalty 
>in a diverse school population, having them share "a
common 
>experience...designed to evoke in them appreciation
of the nation's 
>hopes and dreams, its sufferings and sacrifices....
The ultimate 
>foundation of a free society is the binding tie of
cohesive 
>sentiment." 
> 
>But Justice Frankfurter's 1940 Gobitis decision was
soon re-versed, 
>when Justice Robert Jackson wrote a ferociously
eloquent opinion for 
>an 8-to-1 majority that struck down the statutes
that, post-Gobitis, 
>had enforced salutation of the flag and recitation of
the Pledge. 
>This 1943 Barnette opinion, with its robust warning
against the 
>authoritarian coercion of belief, still holds as
constitutional 
>doctrine: 
> 
>Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the
unanimity of the 
>graveyard.... There is no mysticism in the American
concept of the 
>State or of the nature or origin of its authority. We
set up 
>government by consent of the governed, and the Bill
of Rights denies 
>those in power any legal opportunity to coerce that
consent. ... If 
>there is any fixed star in our constitutional
constellation, it is 
>that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what
shall be 
>orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other
matters of 
>opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act
their faith 
>therein. 
> 
>Jackson's magnificent, lucid words notwithstanding,
Bellamy's Pledge 
>continued to inspire secular sanctimony. And flag
worship 
>intensified in 1954, when the Knights of Columbus
persuaded 
>President Eisenhower to add the words "under God."
Ike saw no harm 
>in affirming that America, battling against godless
Communism, was 
>doing so "under God" – this enhanced his standing
with patriotic 
>voters. In an Ike-ish smudge of non-meaning, he
added, "Our 
>government makes no sense unless it is founded on a
deeply felt 
>religious belief – and I don't care what it is." 
> 
>President Theodore Roosevelt had detested this kind
of mush. When he 
>authorized a new design for a $20 gold coin in 1907,
he was relieved 
>that no statute required the words "In God We Trust"
to appear on 
>them. To engrave the phrase on specie, this believing
Christian 
>said, "not only does no good but does positive harm,"
weakening the 
>very spiritual commitment it was intended to promote.
Congress, 
>however, reflexively favoring banal religiosity, made
the motto 
>mandatory on coins, and positive harm ensued. 
> 
>Newdow claims that the "under God" phrase in the 1954
Pledge 
>violates the clause in the First Amendment reading
"Congress shall 
>make no law respecting an establishment of
religion...." To 
>"establish" a church is to make it a national or
state church, but 
>American law scarcely worries about that
unlikelihood; rather, the 
>courts repeatedly assess whether the government is
favoring religion 
>in publicly funded activities. (The basic worry is
about favoring 
>one church over another; secularists worry about
favoring religion 
>of any kind.) Does the 1954 Pledge do such a thing?
The Elk Grove 
>School District will have to argue that it does not
"establish" 
>religion. 
> 
>Fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Catholics
oppose Newdow 
>because they want this godly Pledge affirmed as
constitutional, but 
>the truth is that they also believe it favors
religion – and should. 
>They are confident that America functions "under
God," that the 
>Founders believed this and that we should say so out
loud. Take the 
>Roman Catholic Justice Antonin Scalia. Blithely
misinterpreting two 
>centuries of post-Enlightenment political philosophy,
he claims 
>"that government – however you want to limit that
concept – derives 
>its moral authority from God," that this was "the
consensus of 
>Western thought until very recent times. Not just of
Christian or 
>religious thought, but of secular thought regarding
the powers of 
>the state. That consensus has been upset, I think, by
the emergence 
>of democracy." His bizarre argument appeals to
"people of faith" not 
>to resign themselves to this deplorable "tendency of
democracy to 
>obscure the divine authority behind government" but
"to combat it as 
>effectively as possible." Americans have already done
this, he 
>claims, "by preserving in our public life many
visible reminders 
>that – in the words of a Supreme Court opinion from
the 1940s – 'we 
>are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose
a Supreme 
>Being.'" (It was Justice William Douglas in 1952, but
never mind.) 
>Look at "In God We Trust" on our coins and in our
courtrooms, he 
>says; "one nation, under God" in our Pledge of
Allegiance, "the 
>opening of sessions of our legislatures with a
prayer." 
> 
>True, the Founders believed that all humanity lived
"under God," 
>but, as Jackson knew and evidently Douglas did not,
as people of 
>faith know and evidently atheists do not, this
abstract deism in no 
>way resembles the belief that God created the United
States and 
>speaks through its institutions. As good
eighteenth-century deists 
>the Founders respected the concept of an Almighty
Being under whose 
>aegis and according to whose laws the world turns,
but they risked 
>their lives for the principle of government created
not by divine 
>powers but by ordinary people using their human
intelligence and 
>reason. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights, which
never mention 
>God, are the great and crowning glories of the
secular 
>Enlightenment. 
> 
>All too many interpreters since 1954 – deaf to these
distinctions 
>and trying to be broad-minded – have said, along with
Eisenhower, 
>that public mention of God, which is considered
anodyne, should be 
>permitted out of fidelity to our national origins. So
fine a Justice 
>as William Brennan argued nonsensically that
"ceremonial deistic" 
>language is constitutionally permissible because it
has become 
>essentially meaningless. These weak proponents of "In
God We Trust" 
>rhetoric, unwittingly enslaved to imprecision of
meaning, do little 
>to combat the blunt reactionary arguments that
distort our Founders' 
>beliefs. 
> 
>There are other angles to worry about. Thanks to the
Barnette 
>decision, no child can be compelled to recite the
Pledge, but Newdow 
>says that merely hearing the word "God" in it makes
an atheist feel 
>excluded from the polity whose citizens "worship
God." The Court 
>must decide whether this aural experience is indeed
coercive. 
>Newdow's victimization thesis is popular: Think how
much of our 
>culture today attributes high moral value to claims
of oppression, 
>exclusion, exploitation. Yet contrary to what Newdow
says, the 
>Pledge of Allegiance doesn't begin to express the
spiritual nature 
>of most Americans' civic life. 
> 
>The meaning of the word "God" is also up for grabs:
Atheists flail 
>about trying to define the abhorrent thing, while
Judge Goodwin 
>petulantly imagines it as a singular Judeo-Christian
noun offensive 
>to polytheists. His view seems more opinion than
fact, as lawyers 
>say, but he has supporters. 
> 
>Secularists also argue that since prayer is banned in
public schools 
>and the Pledge has become a sort of prayer, it should
be banned, 
>too. Here again we're in the realm of non-meaning. To
pledge is "to 
>recognize the obligation of fidelity" to something,
in this case 
>"the Flag of the United States and the Republic for
which it stands" 
>– self-evidently a secular act. This is very
different from making 
>"an earnest and devout entreaty of a deity,"
effecting "a spiritual 
>communion with God as in praise, thanksgiving,
contrition or 
>confession" – a religious act. The Pledge of
Allegiance would be a 
>prayer (or oath, as its atheist opponents and
military supporters 
>often describe it) only if the flag itself is
worshiped as a symbol 
>of transcendent authority. This may be happening, of
course. 
> 
>Meanwhile, millions of Americans who are religious
but not 
>fundamentalist (one reliable poll says roughly half
of us), 
>including Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists,
are just as edgy 
>as atheists are about the God talk, and they deplore
what we might 
>call the Scalia-Falwell position. A Baptist minister
in the South 
>recently wrote, echoing TR, "Giving lip service to
God does not 
>advance faith, it cheapens it. It takes the language
of faith and 
>reduces it to mere political rhetoric. Language that
has the power 
>to heal and mend should never be treated so
callously." The voices 
>of millions of believers who dislike noisy
declarations of faith in 
>the public square and noisy ministers in the White
House have not 
>(yet) been heard. The middle ground, where many of us
still dwell, 
>as our deist Founders did, wishing to honor both the
life of faith 
>and the idea of a secular government, is treated as
if it had 
>disappeared. 
> 
>Nor has anybody stepped back to ask, Do we really
need this Pledge 
>of Allegiance, and if so, why? Frankfurter and
Jackson posed and 
>answered this question – in wartime, too – and on
March 24 the 
>Justices will take it up again. In my opinion, the
Pledge deserves 
>to be shorn of its quasi-sacrosanct status as well as
of the "under 
>God" phrase, but I may be a minority of one. 
> 
>Fundamentalist Christians and their friends in
Washington are keen 
>to have Newdow heard precisely so they can discredit
the secular 
>presumptions they detest and affirm the kind of
belief Scalia 
>cherishes. One fears they may want to use the case as
a lever to 
>shift the balance; once the Supremes assure them that
the Pledge 
>with "under God" in it is constitutional, then local
teachers and 
>politicians sympathetic to them might try to amplify
it into more 
>openly Christian, even Jesus-specific, formulations.
They have a 
>President in the White House who listens to them, a
Justice 
>Department sympathetic to their aims, a Solicitor
General who is 
>close to some of their principal agents – in short, a
perfect 
>political situation in which to further their cause. 
> 
>For the Bushies and the religious right, Newdow is a
perfect 
>opponent, and they're piling on. He's an atheist and
proud of it; he 
>didn't marry his daughter's mother and didn't have
custodial rights 
>when he started his litigation; moreover, the mother,
Sandra 
>Banning, is an evangelical Christian who says her
daughter doesn't 
>mind the Pledge. While Newdow's initial case was
wending its way 
>through courts in various jurisdictions, he created a
legal tangle 
>over parental rights; when the California school
district where his 
>daughter is a pupil appealed Judge Goodwin's ruling,
it also 
>challenged Newdow's standing to have a say in her
education. The 
>Supreme Court ordered briefs and argument on that
issue, and asked 
>Solicitor General Theodore Olson to file an amicus
brief in the 
>school district's case. 
> 
>Thus far, Olson has argued that the "under God"
phrase in the Pledge 
>is an "official acknowledgment of our nation's
religious heritage," 
>analogous to "In God We Trust" on coins and bills.
Here we go again: 
>This is the "ceremonial deism" or "historically
verified 
>foundationalism" that Scalia approves of for his own
dark reasons 
>and that Brennan and Douglas accepted. Olson adds, in
a sleazy bow 
>to creationists, that the Pledge phrase can't be any
more offensive 
>to some pupils than teaching modern science is to
others: "Public 
>schools routinely instruct students about evolution,
war and other 
>matters with which some parents may disagree on
religious, political 
>or moral grounds." 
> 
>Thank the lord, though (as we say), Justice Scalia is
out of the 
>picture. Speaking at a Religious Freedom Day rally
organized by the 
>Knights of Columbus in Fredericksburg, Virginia, a
year ago, he 
>derided the Ninth Circuit's Newdow decision as an
example of 
>constitutional misinterpretation. Justices aren't
supposed to 
>comment on cases that might come before them on which
they haven't 
>yet heard full briefs and arguments, so Newdow
requested that he 
>recuse himself, and Scalia agreed. We know about the
cases from 
>which he refuses to recuse himself; perhaps he has
calculated that 
>this one is safe without him. 
> 
>Secular liberals and church-state separationists
supporting Newdow 
>gloomily anticipate that, yes, the Court will uphold
the school 
>district's appeal. Twenty groups, including People
for the American 
>Way, the ACLU, and Americans United for Separation of
Church and 
>State, have gamely filed amicus briefs for Newdow and
will watch 
>warily as this peculiar father argues his own case,
but for them, 
>it's a pain in the neck: They have gay marriages and
abortion rights 
>to worry about; even if a godly Pledge is entrenched
in our schools 
>as a patriotic litmus test, they think of this as
fighting a major 
>battle on a minor front. 
> 
>For the fundamentalists and their friends in
Washington, there are 
>no minor fronts in this political war, and an
election is looming. 
>Amicus briefs supporting the school district have
poured in from 
>dozens of organizations, including the Senate and
House of 
>Representatives, and the governors' offices of
California and Idaho. 
>Republican politics have swirled around the case from
the get-go. 
>(In 2002, Republicans attacked Governor Gray Davis
for not being 
>vigilant enough about the Newdow "threat.") And here
comes the 
>American Legion, the Knights of Columbus and the
Pacific Legal 
>Foundation, a conservative outfit. Then there's the
Christian Legal 
>Society, a group of lawyers who want more Jesus in
public debate, 
>whose brief has been joined by the Center for Public
Justice, a 
>well-known right-wing group, and the Ethics and
Religious Liberty 
>Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, proud
of its inside 
>dealings with the Bush White House. "You're not going
to run into 
>too many people who are smarter than Karl [Rove],"
Richard Land, its 
>president, has said. "Karl understands the importance
of this 
>segment of his coalition, and I think the President
understands it." 
>Looking out for the mother, Sandra Banning, is
Kenneth Starr, 
>Solicitor General Olson's pal and former law partner.
Now, how did 
>that come about? 
> 
>The list goes on: the National Association of
Evangelicals, another 
>key group for Bush; Phyllis Schlafly – no party
complete without her 
>– of the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund;
and my 
>favorite, the Rutherford Institute, "a tiny
foundation on the far 
>shores of the right wing that advocated a literal
interpretation of 
>biblical scripture as a replacement for civil law,"
as one 
>chronicler described it. We last heard of the
Rutherford Institute 
>when it was supplying lawyers for Paula Jones in 1998
– lawyers who 
>benefited so nicely from their proximity to friends
in Ken Starr's 
>independent counsel office. 
> 
>Many of these same political activists turned up in
November to 
>celebrate President Bush's signing of the "partial
birth" abortion 
>ban. About this happy moment, Jerry Falwell, in a
burst of 
>characteristic hogwash, wrote: 
> 
>After having a wonderful time of fellowship with
President Bush, the 
>president asked if we could all join hands and pray
that God will 
>bless our efforts to preserve life in our land. What
an astounding 
>moment this was for me personally. Standing there in
the Oval Office 
>I felt suddenly humbled to be in the presence of a
man – our 
>president – who takes his faith very seriously and
who seeks the 
>prayers of his friends as he leads our nation.
Following the prayer, 
>I told President Bush the people in the room
represent about 200,000 
>pastors and 80 million believers nationwide, who
consider him not 
>only to be our president but also a man of God. He
humbly turned to 
>me and replied, "I'll try to live up to it." 
> 
>The bold calculation of electoral power, the canny
conflation of a 
>sectarian agenda with divisive presidential politics,
the syrup of 
>piety poured over both – this is Bush's America, a
country where 
>fundamentalism thrives in the chaos of non-meaning in
secular public 
>space. Richard Land has said, "We're in this for the
long haul, and 
>the people on the other side had best understand
...we're winning." 
>I'm not sure about that, but to prove him wrong we
have to be sure 
>we say what we mean, and mean what we say – on the
campaign trail, 
>in Congress and in our courts. 
> 
>Elisabeth Sifton is senior vice president of Farrar,
Straus & 
>Giroux, is the author of 'The Serenity Prayer: Faith
and Politics in 
>Times of Peace and War' (Norton). 



---------------------------------
 Get tax tips, tools and access to IRS forms – all in
one place at MSN Money! 


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html