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One Nation Under God, Revisited

Lauren

A month ago I wrote on Ethan’s experience reciting the pledge in his kindergarten classroom.

Last week when Ethan started kindergarten, I was concerned about a great number of things, one of which was him knowing that no matter what any authority or law says, his rights do not stop at the school doors. When a friend reminded me that all Indiana children in public schools have to stand and recite the pledge every day at school to an American flag whose presence is mandated in every classroom, I made a point of discussing this with Ethan, simply to let him know that he had a choice of whether or not to stand with his classmates and make a pledge he certainly doesn’t understand.

I explained it as simply as possible without even touching on the religious complaints against the pledge. Our country is at war overseas, I told him, and some people with a lot of power believe that saying the pledge will make us love our country more and support the war. But, I told him, I think it’s silly to think that a pledge will make us love our country when there are plenty of other things to be grateful for, and just so you know, Mama doesn’t support the war. You can say the pledge if you want to, but it is your choice. No one can make you say it and no one can make you not say it.

I don’t care about “under God.” I care that my child is being asked to conform to an ideal he knows nothing about.

Since then I have spent several days in two local high schools, substitute teaching and gearing up for my student teaching. In both schools, the pledge is tacked on to the beginning of the daily announcements, with a short moment of silence that no one observes between the pledge and the call-out for the FFA. In the more urban school, half of the students participated, half did not. In the more rural school, everyone at the very least stood up and faced the flag.

As per usual, I didn’t say or do anything during the pledge. I got the feeling that both teachers and students found this time, as well as the endless string of announcements, an intrusion of sorts.

I had planned on blogging about this earlier in the week, but forgot until Alley Rat sent me this story (bugmenot: joe_user/123123):

A federal judge declared the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional Wednesday in a case brought by the same atheist whose previous battle against the words “under God” was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton ruled that the pledge’s reference to one nation “under God” violates school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.“

As I indicated in the original look at the pledge in Ethan’s school, it isn’t so much the phrase “under God” that gets me, it is the coersion of saluting a symbol the children don’t fully understand because of a jingoistic state mandate.

That said, I think the judge has a lucid point. The pledge is indeed an affirmation of God, one god, one kind of god. Not explicitly informing the children of their right to not affirm god and nation in the public schools is coersive, exactly why I told my boy he had a choice.

32 thoughts on One Nation Under God, Revisited

  1. If the whole god-in-the-pledge thing is not about slowly wiggling religion into the classroom, and this is not some sort of a prayer or religious offering, and this is not, in fact, a plea to any one god in particular, open to individual interpretation, then I propose that we add that great, single-lettered but oh-so-important indefinite article to the damn thing:

    …one nation, under a god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

    Admittedly, it doesn’t solve the atheist issue, but it would be a step in the right direction. If only becuase it’d really piss off people who think that introducting Christ into the Classroom is the best way to prepare our children for the Real World.

    PS – Was anyone else a little miffed about how in that article, the first reference to the person bringing the suit is “the same atheist”? It seems more than a little intentionally demeaning.

  2. all Indiana children in public schools have to stand and recite the pledge every day at school to an American flag whose presence is mandated in every classroom

    I’d be surprised if that were true. It’s been unconstitutional for 62 years now.

  4. Something like 85% of the American public supports the Pledge of Allegiance.I don’t think this judge intended it, but he just handed Republicans a beautiful winning issue for the next election and singlehandedly ensured the defeat of several more Democratic members of Congress.

  5. Allah, see here.

    The schools I have been in around here, off the top of my head three high schools and two elementary schools, they don’t tell the kids they have a choice to say or not say the pledge. At some point the kids figure it out, but not in kindergarten. That and the peer and authoritative pressure is coersive and goes against principles of American freedom.

  6. Okay. I see from your link that the law says the pledge is voluntary (as it legally must be) and that the schools may but need not tell the children that they don’t have to participate. That’s different from what your post says, but it clears things up.

    You say the kids don’t fully understand what they’re saluting when they recite the pledge, and I think you’re right; when I was in school the pledge was nothing to me but a rote formality. Doesn’t that sort of undermine your concerns about indoctrination, though? How can kids be indoctrinated if they don’t understand what they’re doing? It’s like forcing propaganda leaflets on people who can’t read.

    I disagree with a number of other things you’ve said — equating patriotism with “jingoism,” asserting that it’s the state’s and not the parent’s responsibility to inform a child what his/her rights are, suggesting that political dissent is something kindergartners should be thinking about — but these are all political arguments and like I said in Jeff’s thread, at this point there’s really no sense in arguing anymore.

    I will say that if the Indiana school are anything like the schools I went to hear in NYC, ain’t a damn thing anyone can do about peer pressure. Alas.

  7. Okay. I see from your link that the law says the pledge is voluntary (as it legally must be) and that the schools may but need not tell the children that they don’t have to participate. That’s different from what your post says, but it clears things up.

    Yeah, that was hashed out in the comments of the previous post that this one links to.

    Doesn’t that sort of undermine your concerns about indoctrination, though? How can kids be indoctrinated if they don’t understand what they’re doing? It’s like forcing propaganda leaflets on people who can’t read.

    To me that’s besides the point. It’s not necessarily indoctrination (as I think that is a loaded term) but most important that children understand the connotations to their ritual practice in schools. If that practice is overtly political in nature, for greater political reasons that they are too young to understand, as it was with the pledge debate in Indiana. I don’t even think political dissent is something that Ethan should have to think about, but I wanted him to be aware that he had a choice. Just that simple.

    I don’t have an aversion to the pledge exactly, but it’s the mandate of having the flag in every classroom and the moment of silence and whatnot that bug the hell out of me. Granted, these are public, government schools, but they are here for a far different reason than to make little soldiers of children (His father and I also removed him from the list that compiles information about his academics for the military as per NCLB). There are far better ways to impart pride and patriotism in ways that small children can understand. This is not one of them.

    I do my part by pointing out small things to be grateful for everyday. Every moment is a teachable moment. This kerfluffle with the pledge is one of them.

  8. I don’t even think political dissent is something that Ethan should have to think about, but I wanted him to be aware that he had a choice.

    But how meaningful is his “choice” considering (a) as we’ve both acknowledged, he doesn’t understand what the pledge is about in the first place, and (b) he’s obviously going to be heavily influenced by your opinion about it (“I told him, I think it’s silly to think that a pledge will make us love our country when there are plenty of other things to be grateful for”)? Don’t get me wrong: it’s entirely appropriate that he should do things your way. But let’s not dress it up in the robes of some phantom “choice.”

    As for this:

    Granted, these are public, government schools, but they are here for a far different reason than to make little soldiers of children

    Why do you keep equating the pledge with militarism? There’s nothing in it about war, and there hasn’t been any sort of “pledge of allegiance initiative” by the Bush administration that I’m aware of. The only values the pledge mentions are liberty and justice for all. There’s no reason to think that people who recite it are more likely to end up as little soldiers than as little draft dodgers. Or is there?

  9. You wrote:

    I don’t care about “under God.” I care that my child is being asked to conform to an ideal he knows nothing about.

    Call me crazy, but I thought this was a big part of what parenting is all about, getting our children to conform to ideals they know nothing about. Otherwise, they kind of stay children, don’t they?

    Speaking of protecting our children from offensive content, why is it that the language on the left-leaning blogs is so often crude, whereas the right-leaning blogs seem to keep things cleaner? Limited vocabularies? Poor social editors? Tourette syndrome?

    I do like the child-with-shotgun logo. So many on the left are anti-gun….

    — Hank

  10. The pledge doesn’t require of its reciter any love of this country. It only requires that he or she promise not to commit treason. Not Ann Coulter “Treason”; I mean honest to G-d treason. My motto: you’re never too young to not commit treason.

  11. I live in Sacramento and know Judge Karlton’s work well. He does not now and rarely has had a lucid point. He’s joined at the hip to the radical 9th Circuit and sees himself as an extension of that court. That said, I sympathize with your concerns about “government schools”, but for the opposite reasons. Here in California, we have leftist activism rampant in the classroom. One teacher was admonished in the Bay Area for teaching the Declaration of Independance due to its God references. Indeed, the answer is to get your kids, as I have, out of government schools. I realize that your concerns are different, but there you have it. My two cents for those who believe all Californians are liberal…

  12. Allah: I think choice sets a precedence for conflicts down the road, with me and with other forms of authority.

    Rob:

    One teacher was admonished in the Bay Area for teaching the Declaration of Independance due to its God references.

    That’s just silly. I can’t even think of a probable defense for that considering it is completely grounded in the country’s history.

    Boko:

    The pledge doesn’t require of its reciter any love of this country.

    The mandate was decided after the war on Iraq was begun, a very clear intention for what is intended behind this mandate. It may not require “love” but what it does encourage is blind obediance for this age group.

  13. That’s just silly. I can’t even think of a probable defense for that considering it is completely grounded in the country’s history.

    …and yet it happened. He’s teaches in Sunnyvale and now must submit all resources to muckety-mucks for preapproval before using them in the classroom.
    We should be careful what we ask for. Atheists already had a country of their own and that didn’t work out too well… for anyone…

  14. Atheists already had a country of their own and that didn’t work out too well… for anyone…

    So then why not support a change to:

    …one country, under a god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

    And why not also demand actually teaching kids to parse what that enormously long, relatively ambiugous sentence means.

    I mean, I trust you can tell me what “the republic” is and what the ‘it’ in “for which it stands” refers to. But can kids do that? I’ll bet most high schoolers can’t. I’d bet if you stopped ten people on the street, no more than two or three would be able to tell you, at least not without taking some serious time to think about it.

    And if this is so goddamn crucial to our country, why are there not days, if not weeks, dedicated to dissecting what the pledge means? It’s recited in our classrooms, for better, for worse. If it’s recited there, it should be taught and be taught to be understood — not just memorized, but parsed, and analyzed — in our classrooms as well. And the freedom to recite or not recite it must persist, in addition to its being taught well. This isn’t un-American, unpatriotic, or unholy speak, either. It’s just teaching kids to understand what it is they’re being told to believe in.

  15. What choice does any child have about blind obedience? I don’t know what you actually said to him, or what a six year-old took from what you said, but he either got the impression that you wanted him to recite the pledge, or that you didn’t, right? It’s all obedience.

    Fine that you prefer his obedience be to you, but how does blind obedience to the Republic, or the Bush administration, or whatever else, manifest itself in a six year-old. What are the bushies telling six year-olds to do? I’m not actually sure how it would manifest itself in a twenty-six year-old, either. What are the blindly obedient adults doing, these days?

    I’m off point. The pledge seems to stand on its own; whatever your doofus legislature hoped to get out of it, isn’t pledging allegience (not obedience; no small point) in and of itself an okay thing for a child to do? Fine not to do it, I suppose; fine even to recite the allegience pledging first clause, but not the adjectival second part. But to refuse not to promise not to commit treason (sorry; can’t think of a better way to put it) just to stick it to your doofus legislature, seems a little, er, childish.

  17. Your son is free not to say the pledge.

    Also, you’re free to misspell “coercion” and “coercive” as many times as you like. Ain’t freedom grand?

  18. How can kids be indoctrinated if they don’t understand what they’re doing? It’s like forcing propaganda leaflets on people who can’t read.

    No, it’s like using propaganda leaflets to teach kids to read. Indoctrination is most effective when you don’t realise that it’s happening.

  20. One teacher was admonished in the Bay Area for teaching the Declaration of Independance due to its God references.

    Wrong.

    The teacher, in Cupertino, was admonished not for teaching the actual Declaration of Independence, but for trying to use supplemental material of a specifically religious character, which was both inappropriate for elementary school children and not in compliance with the curriculum:

    Among the banned documents, the suit says, were religious excerpts from the Declaration of Independence, various state constitutions and writings by George Washington, John Adams and William Penn.

    The principal also banned a document Williams created called “What Great Leaders Have Said About The Bible.” It quotes Jesus Christ and nine U.S. presidents.

    And lo and behold, the bulk of his First Amendment case against the school thrown out “teachers do not have a First Amendment right to determine what curriculum will be taught in the classroom.”
     And when the case was settled, the teacher (who is being reassigned to teach older students) specifically signed onto “the district’s existing policy that teachers can use instructional material containing religious content but only if it is ‘objective, age appropriate, and in compliance with curriculum.'”

  22. Just fyi, according to this article on CNN, this particular judge did not decide anything. “Karlton said he was bound by precedent of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2002 ruled in favor of Sacramento atheist Michael Newdow that the pledge is unconstitutional when recited in public schools.” Newdow’s case made it to the SCOTUS but was thrown out on a technicality since he did not have legal guardianship of his child. The SCOTUS did not overturn the 9th’s decision, therefore this judge had to decide the case the way he did.

  23. More comments, inspired by and in response to Rob:

    Atheists already had a country of their own and that didn’t work out too well… for anyone…

    One thing about the Pledge discussion (and many related topics that reference religion) is that removal of the religious reference implies that an endorsement of anti-religion. Changing the Pledge to “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” does not compel individuals to denounce religious beliefs. Changing it to “one nation, without any gods, indivisible, […]” would. Thus, including “under God” in the Pledge compels atheists to profess a false belief in God in order to demonstrate their patriotism. Removal of those two words would make the Pledge neutral in regard to religion. Atheists and Christians alike could then pledge their allegiance to their country if so desired.

    The bigger problem with this statement is that it is misleading. I assume the “country of [atheists’] own” you’re referring to was the USSR. Well, that country did not belong to the atheists. It belonged to the Communists. The Communists viewed religion as a threat to their power. Thus, religion was outlawed as a means to an end. In fact, atheists have had another country, and I think that one has worked out pretty well (though we’re still working out some kinks). That country would be the USA. Many of the founders of this country were atheists (or at most Deists). I would say those atheists did a pretty good job.

  24. Why do so much to give the kid a choice without explaining to the young lad the full consequences of the choice? Let me say, I’ve never met a SINGLE SOUL who considered the Pledge blind indoctrination who was actually the one being made to say it. Not until high school did anyone even THINK about what it meant. The sentence is just too dang long and confusing.

    Unless you’re homeschooling or holding lengthy discussions with your son describing what the Pledge means, he knows NOTHING of what the Pledge means beyond what you have just told him. And you just told him a conspiracy theory that is downright preposterous to anyone who remembers being a student, that some mysterious powerful people want to make everyone love a war that Mommy doesn’t. You didn’t give him a choice. You turned him against the pledge. What the heck kinda kindergarteneris gonna support something that his mom hinted was sinister in motive? You indoctrinated HIM.

    Of course, the alternative is that he didn’t particularly care enough about the pledge to listen to what you said, but I really don’t think I ignored my mother’s heart-to-hearts at that age.

    Where I came from, American flags were in every classroom before the Iraq war. For government funded education, I find this to be totally reasonable.

  25. Let me reiterate, if your child walked away from that conversation with anything, ten will get you one it was “The Pledge is just to make us love a bad war (It is clearly a bad war if Mommy doesn’t approve of it.), oh, but you can say it if you REALLY want to.”

  26. By the way, my characterization of your son was from experience. I’m not that far removed from being a Kindergartener myself. It, of course, was not meant as any sort of insult to the young lad.

    I also have no doubt that you’re a fine mother with whose politics I just so happen to disagree, but I just feel that you are characterizing your actions in a way that does not match with their effects.

    On a side note, I’m eternally grateful that I wasn’t encouraged (I wasn’t discouraged.) to think through politics for myself at that age, largely because I was too young to understand most of them. I almost wish I was barred from political opinions until I was 16. I have countless memories of REAL dumb stuff I thought from about 12 years old on up when, by entirely my own choice, I sided with the only political opinions expressed in my household.

  27. Ahem, the last paragraph there is meant that I feel making stupid youthful statements is nothing more than a part of growing up and I myself wish I hadn’t made them. I’m sure we can all agree with THAT.

  28. Not until high school did anyone even THINK about what it meant.

    Well, good lord, what’s the point in making kids say it, then?

  29. I just want to say thank you to zuzu for spelling out the actual facts of the case of the teacher in Sunnyvale. It wasn’t a Big Bad Evil Atheist Conspiracy as some on the religious right are always whining about. It boiled down to a teacher trying to introduce religious material in the classroom for the purpose of evangelizing. There’s a reason that’s verboten–it gives religion the appearance of government endorsement. Somehow, I have a feeling we’d have heard hearing the religious right-niks screaming bloody murder if the teacher was promoting Islam in the classroom. Separating THAT church from the state would be, one suspects, perfectly OK with Pat Robertson and the boys.

    On another note, I understand that the “under God” portion of the Pledge wasn’t inserted until 1954, by Congress. Hmmm. Guess our country was just mired in Godless Heathen Atheistic Sinful Materialism from 1892, when the Pledge was written, up until 1954. I guess the U.S. was just a moral cesspool till all Americans were raised out of the muck by that magic phrase…

    Yes, I do go on, don’t I? Gonna go take my meds now. Bye!

  30. …so let me get this straight. The teacher in question had not only the document he created rejected, but also “religious excerpts” from the founding fathers were rejected as well. (Wait, I thought they were atheists?) So, because the Declaration of Independence has “religious overtones”, it was material deemed worthy of classroom instruction. So the D of I has blatant religious content although it was written by atheists “or at least Deists”. Just trying to get my Revisionist American History together.
    By the way, a country so completely steeped in Judeo-Christian tradition and values such as ours cannot be considered an atheist country. Also, my comment about the USSR’s atheist government was “misleading” although it’s admitted that “religion was outlawed as a means to an end.” Me thinks a budding Doublespeaker is in our midst….

  31. By the way, a country so completely steeped in Judeo-Christian tradition and values such as ours cannot be considered an atheist country.

    Which is why the U.S. is considered a secular country. We seem to be forgetting that the separation of church and state was implemented to, among other things, protect religion from the government.

    So the D of I has blatant religious content although it was written by atheists “or at least Deists”.

    The point was made that the teacher had taken the theistic language from the D of I to evangelize, thus the intent of the authors is irrelevant in this particular case. But yes, most of our country’s founders were deists and were highly skeptical of organized religion. Common knowledge, no?

    One interesting case study of the failed intersection of church and state is the Cincinatti Bible Wars. It wasn’t the atheists who got religion pushed out of public schools, it was the denominational argument about which church should have its views endorsed by the state. Food for thought.

  32. The district’s policy is that “teachers can use instructional material containing religious content but only if it is ‘objective, age appropriate, and in compliance with curriculum.’”

    Taking quotes out of context is not presenting religion objectively. In fact, taking any references to a Creator (of which there are not many in the Declaration) and teaching that this is a reference to the Christian god is a gross distortion of the text and purpose of the document.

    And here’s what you refuse to acknowledge: the teacher was not reprimanded for teaching the Declaration of Independence. He was reprimanded because — after several warnings — he used additional materials that did not meet the “objective, age appropriate and in compliance with the curriculum” standard.

    These materials were explicitly religious, and explicitly Christian. The Declaration of Independence is neither.

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