In My Creator I Trust
Annette Mayville
I think about
words every now and then how words are used in everyday life,
and how meaning is conveyed by words. Also, some words can invoke
many different kinds of reactions. Take the word gay,
for example, once used to mean merry and joyous. But over time,
meanings change, and when the term gay is used today,
there is another meaning to that word. Even more frightening is
the way words can be rearranged, added, or subtracted in order
to change the meaning of what has been written or spoken. A good
example is the quote Play it again, Sam, which is
a famous misquote from the movie Casablanca. The character Ilsa
Lund says, "Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By.
Nowhere in the film do any of the characters say the words Play
it again, Sam. When I hear the Pledge of Allegiance
today, I think the current version is misquoted like the quotes
that supposedly came from Casablanca. Congress in 1954 added the
words under God to the Pledge and forever
changed the meaning of it. The words under God should
be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance because the
words were not in the original version of the Pledge, as written
by Francis Bellamy in 1892. Also, the federal government, by placing
those words in the Pledge, established a national religion, which
is against the rules set forth by the Constitution of the United
States of America, and, furthermore, the words under God
interfere with the citizens personal religious freedoms.
Finally, the words add nothing to the Pledge per se.
When I was in grade school in the 70s, I had to recite the
Pledge of Allegiance every day before the class started.
I still remember the words to this day: I pledge allegiance
to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic
for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. It was the same Pledge that my
father learned when he was in school. In my younger years, I was
always confused by how people at sporting events would say the
Pledge differently. I would hear scatterings of the words under
God in the Pledge. In high school, I learned the Pledge
with the words under God. I was confused, so I went
home and asked my parents--why was the Pledge changed?
My father said that he, also, had to learn the Pledge all over
again in 1954, when he was still in school. My mother, on the
other hand, didnt learn the Pledge until the early 60s
when she immigrated to the United States from Canada, and my mother
learned the Pledge with under God because she thought
that it was required to gain admission into this country. Then,
I asked my parents if I had to say the new words under
God. Both my parents told me it was up to me to decide if
I wanted to say the words or not, and, being a teenager, I did
what comes naturally to many teenagers; I rebelled against saying
under God. I would keep saying the Pledge the way
I had learned it back in grade school. Larry Witham and Sean Salai,
who both write for Insight on the News magazine, wrote about what
President Eisenhower said when he signed the bill into law requiring
the words under God: From this day forward,
the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every
city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication
of our nation and our people to the Almighty. But why add
words to the Pledge that its creator had not written in the first
place? Besides, the addition of the words under God
in my view is establishment of a national religion, which is expressly
prohibited by the Constitution of the United States.
In learning the history of the United States, I have discovered
an amazing and very important document that all of our laws are
based upon, the Constitution of the United States. The Framers,
as the men who helped created the Constitution were known, had
amazing foresight to set forth rules needed to govern the people.
At the back of my history book is a reprint of the Constitution,
and when I read it, I am amazed at the power of the document.
Found in the First Amendment is this passage: Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
These are powerful words to behold. Then why did Congress and
the President back in 1954 choose to ignore these words? Back
in the 1950s, Communism was THE issue of the day. It was
as if a Communist boogieman lurked in every street corner, and
the United States President of that era wanted to send a message
that he would not have godless Communism in his country. If anyone
mentioned Communism, he or she would have been suspected of practicing
it. So, in order to combat Communism, Congress passed a bill to
alter the Pledge, and President Dwight Eisenhower approved it.
The alteration was to add the words under God to the
Pledge. In 1954 when the bill was passed, many people complained
that the change violated the Constitution because the words under
God now established a national religion.
God is a Judeo-Christian deity, and He is found in no other religion
but Judeo-Christian. If a person came to this country from another
land and had a different religion that was not Jewish or Christian,
then would not he or she feel uncomfortable because this person
would have to say under God when reciting the Pledge?
Many immigrants believed as my mother did when she came to this
country that the words under God would also have to
be said in the Pledge in order to become an American citizen.
But people in this country are of more religions than just Christians.
There are also followers of Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and various
other religions. Many of these religions believe in some kind
of a creator. But, they have many different names for this creator,
and in some religions, it is blasphemy to refer to this creator
by any other name than the one used in that religion. Then why
were these people left out when it came to changing the Pledge?
In my book, the term God is strictly Judeo-Christian,
and, therefore, what Congress and the President did back in 1954
was in violation of the Constitution. Also, I
believe that the words under God interfere with many
peoples personal religious freedoms.
Some people
found it difficult to practice religion in public because they
were taught by their parents that it was no one elses business
what religion they practice. So, some people find it hard to say
the words under God because it is in conflict with
what they were taught by their parents. Some people feel like
they are being forced to endorse a particular religion. Again,
what about the Hindi, Buddhists, and the followers of Islam? Does
it bother these people of faith to say the words under God
when reciting the Pledge? How about even the followers of the
Christian faith? Some people were taught not to take the Lords
name in vain. Rodney Clapp, an editorial director whose article
appeared in Christian Century, wrote, If one considers
Elk Grover Unified School v. Newdow theologically, with the conviction
that God ultimately refers to the Creator-Redeemer met in Israel
and Jesus Christ, then the God Americans are to pledge
their nation to be under is at worst an idol and at
best the true Gods name taken in vain. Isnt
that what every Christian follower does every time he or she says
the Pledge? Elizabeth Cazden wrote to the Christian
Century magazine about her views on the Pledge: I was always
a bit uncomfortable with the pledge, even as a child when it (along
with the Lords Prayer, Protestant version) was a rote part
of every school day. I most certainly feel that way. When
I had to lead the Pledge back in high school, I was told I was
wrong by my teacher for leaving out the words under God.
Naturally my classmates assumed that I was an Atheist, and they
ostracized me from the group without even asking me why I left
those words out. I could not make friends because no one wanted
to be friends with an Atheist. I wanted to scream at them: I
am not an Atheist! But I stuck to my guns and kept saying
the Pledge without under God. I am patriotic in
keeping with the true form of the pledge, and I believe in the
separation of church and government. God is not some
empty, meaningless word to be tossed about on a whim. God, in
the Judeo-Christian faith, is the creator of the world.
Other religions do not throw around their creators names
in a secular way. Why, then, would the Christians allow Congress
and the President back in 1954 to empty the scared meaning of
God when both elected to add under God
to the Pledge? In an article for Smithsonian magazine,
Jeffrey Owen Jones wrote of the Knights of Columbus who had lobbied
for the addition of the words under God: The
bills sponsors, anticipating that the reference to God would
be challenged as a breach of the Constitutionally mandated separation
of church and state, had argued that the new language wasnt
really religious. The Knights, who are a Catholic fraternal
group, argued: A distinction must be made between the existence
of a religion as an institution and a belief in the sovereignty
of God. Therefore according to the Knights argument,
the word God does not really mean anything and is
not a religious word. The Lords name should not be taken
in vain. Some people do not recite the under God part,
but they may cringe when they hear someone else recite those words
for fear of that persons being struck down by the Lord himself.
Some would say, What about the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution; do not these government documents mention
God? Technically, no, these documents do not mention God.
The Declaration of Independence, for instance, says the following:
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights. This was Thomas Jeffersons way
of dealing with the issue of religionto keep the political
document religion-neutral by using Creator instead
of God. Even back then in 1776, there were several
different religions practiced in the colonies before they declared
their independence from England. And in the Constitution where
it reads, Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of
the States present on Seventeenth Day of September in the Year
of our Lord, again the word Lord was used to
keep the document religion-neutral. Both of these documents are
fine examples of how to keep political government documents neutral
without leaving any religion out. However, the Pledge does not
stay neutral with using God, which is strictly a Judeo-Christian
term. However, President Eisenhower believed that under
God would make the Pledge more patriotic because everyone
would be proclaiming to be for God and country.
The original
version of the Pledge that was written by Bellamy is best. Jones
reprinted Bellamys words: "I pledge allegiance to my
flag and the Republic for which it stands-one Nation indivisible-with
liberty and justice for all. Some people may get the sense
of the religion-neutral patriotism that Bellamy wanted to convey.
Adding the words under God does nothing to promote
patriotism but instead serves to divide the nation by religions.
This division is surely not the intended effect Congress and
the President back in 1954 wanted. They added those words to help
combat what Congress and the President perceived as God-less Communism
trying to take over the United States. My dad said that back then
Communist demons were thought to lurk in the shadows
everywhere, and to even mention the word sometimes got the speaker
arrested. Maybe President Eisenhower felt that adding the words
under God would somehow make the Commie boogieman
disappear. No, only time, talks, and negotiations finally broke
the Communist curtain that threatened to engulf the world. No
longer are we under threat from Communism. Many pledge proponents
offer secular justification to fit Supreme Court rulings. They
claim under God isnt any sort of religious exercise
or prayer but simply a factual acknowledgement of the nations
heritage of faith, for patriotic rather than religious reasons
(Groups Divided). U. S. patriotism is at an all-time
high since the World Trade Center/Pentagon bombing on September
11, 2001. But when some people hear the pledge, they feel patriotic
only up until they hear the words under God. Then
the patriotism is no longer. Instead, some people may get a horrible
feeing inside when they hear the Lords name taken in vain.
For some people, patriotism is celebrating all the cultures and
religions that make up this great land called the United States.
Under God adds nothing to the Pledge but the heartache
of dividing a country.
With Michael
Newdows suing the government to have thewords under
God removed from the Pledge, many people have come out of
the woodwork either for or against the idea of removing those
words from the Pledge. Bill OReilly, who interviewed Newdow,
wrote an article and it appeared in the Fort Worth Business Press.
OReilly wrote, I told him that his hatred of religion
was fine with me, but that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian
principles, and the Founders framed the Constitution around God-given
rights. But, Newdow, an atheist, won his case in June 26,
2002, when the 9th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
voted 2-1 that the Pledge with the words under God
was unconstitutional. Later in 2004, the ruling was overturned
on a technicality. In an article that appeared in First Things:
A Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life, Vincent Phillip
Munoz wrote about how the federal government wanted to strip the
Supreme Court of its jurisdiction: The House of Representatives
voted to do just that in September 2004, when it passed the Pledge
Protection Act. The legislation would prevent all federal courts
from hearing cases that challenge the constitutionality of the
Pledge. Now Newdow is suing the federal government directly
instead of suing Elk Grove Unified School as he did in his original
case. He filed a new lawsuit on January 3, 2005. Newdow wrote
on his website that he wanted the United States to change back
to the previous Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the
United States of America first approved by the Congress in 1942.
It evokes feelings of patriotism and unity, and brings together
the vastly different cultures, ethnicities, languages and backgrounds
that form the common experience called America (restorethepledge.com).
Our founding fathers fought for the ideals of freedoms, which
are in turn bestowed on us with the very words from the Constitution
of the United States. We the People, not We the Christians, or
We the Hindus, or even We the Atheists are the words I would celebrate,
for that is the ideology that this country is built on: We the
People: united, one People. My favorite movie is The American
President not only because it is a love story but because
of what the character President Andrew Shepherdd says near the
end of the movie: America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship.
You've gotta want it bad, cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's
gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge
a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center
stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would
spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want
to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of
your country cannot just be a flag. Those words are ever so true,
even if they were in a fictional movie. The symbol of the United
States cannot be just a flag or even a Pledge to a flag, but,
instead, the symbol must be the people: The people, who are of
different religions, cultures, races, and creeds, that make up
this great nation. We the People of the United States
are not just fancy words the Framers of the Constitution threw
in to make the document look good, but instead they used those
words to include everyone then and for the future. We have to
remember that early in our history it was not just the English
that came to the New World in search of wealth or a new way of
life, but also there were the Spanish, French, and the Dutch that
also came here looking for the same things as the English. Then,
the black Africans were imported here to the United States as
slaves to work in the fields of the South, and these Africans
also brought with them their own religion. Now, we have almost
every country in the world represented by immigrants that come
to the United States every year. We must include everyone American
in the Pledge, and the best way to do that is to remove under
God from the Pledge. We must include all Americans of
all religions in order for this country to remain united. I am
an American, and in my Creator I trust.
I believe in what Michael Newdow is trying to do. I believe in
a United States for ALL the people of ALL religons.
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