Anthony Hatcher, associate professor of communications, published an op-ed essay on current debates concerning recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in the Sunday, July 30 edition of the Durham (NC) Herald-Sun. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed legislation that would bar federal courts from ruling on the constitutional validity of the Pledge.
Hatcher wrote in part: “Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups whose religious beliefs do not permit them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance won exemptions some 60 years ago. Would the House bill reverse these Supreme Court rulings and force Witness children to defy their faith by reciting the Pledge in school? . . .
“There is no doubt that the Declaration of Independence mentions our Creator. There is also no doubt that many letters and official writings by the Founders mention God. But the overriding concern of those Founders more than two hundred years ago was freedom.”
The essay is not available online but is reprinted below.
THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE, UNDER GOD, AND THE FEDERAL COURTS
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the Republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
This is the way the “Pledge to the Flag” read when the Rev. Francis Bellamy wrote it in 1892. It has since been altered three times, most recently with the addition of the words “under God” during the Cold War days of 1954.
Bellamy disliked the changes in 1923 and 1924 that altered the pledge from “my flag” to “the flag of the United States of America.” His granddaughter once stated that Bellamy would have resented “under God” as well.
In April 1951, the Knights of Columbus in New York amended the Pledge for use at their own assemblies by adding the words “under God.” Subsequent resolutions by the Catholic organization led to a campaign to urge Congress and President Eisenhower to change the Pledge officially. The Knights sent letters to every member of Congress in 1952 urging the pledge change.
In his book, “To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance,” Richard J. Ellis writes that “[T]he creation of the Pledge of Allegiance stemmed in large part from the anxiety about the threat that new immigrants posed to the American way of life . . . The addition of ‘under God’ to the Pledge in 1954 emerged out of an anxiety about the threat of Soviet Communism.”
And now, in 2006, the U. S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would bar federal courts from ruling on the constitutional validity of the Pledge. “We should not and cannot rewrite history to ignore our spiritual heritage,” according to Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.
One wonders what would Wamp make of this statement, signed in 1797 by President John Adams:
“As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
This is an excerpt from the Treaty of Tripoli, which lasted for eight years and no longer has legal status. (The section about how the United States “never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation” no longer holds true either, but that’s another story.) The Treaty was a legal document at the time, however, signed by a Founding Father.
Thomas Jefferson’s deism is well documented, and he went so far as to cut and paste the New Testament for his own revised version of the Bible so that the ethics of Jesus remain, but the miracles vanish.
Jehovah’s Witnesses and other groups whose religious beliefs do not permit them to recite the Pledge of Allegiance won exemptions some 60 years ago. Would the House bill reverse these Supreme Court rulings and force Witness children to defy their faith by reciting the Pledge in school?
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., said denying a child the right to say the Pledge was a form of censorship. I agree, to an extent. If a child wants to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school, using the phrase “under God,” he or she should be permitted to. Two things disturb me, though: the trend in Congress to circumvent the nation’s courts, and the tendency by the Religious Right to misrepresent the Founders as universally Christian.
There is no doubt that the Declaration of Independence mentions our Creator. There is also no doubt that many letters and official writings by the Founders mention God. But the overriding concern of those Founders more than two hundred years ago was freedom.
This means freedom of religion, but it also means freedom from religion. The Constitution provides a three-pronged government as a checks and balances system to protect our freedoms. The two North Carolina Democrats and the Republicans who voted yes on the U.S. House bill to restrict our courts are not basing their decision on “original intent.”
Denying federal court review of congressional and presidential actions is certainly not the “original intent” of the Founders of this nation. As Rep. Wamp said, “We should not and cannot rewrite history . . . ”