is the pledge unconstitutional?

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"one nation, under GOD"...
wasnt the first big idea to have a seperation of church and state???

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Type: Discussion • Score: 12 • Views: 16,893 • Replies: 282

[+3] - littlek - 05/17/2011From what I understand as an outsider looking into religious thinking, christians, jews, and muslims all believe in the same god. Perhaps I have that wrong.
[+3] - MontereyJack - 05/22/2011and "one nation, indivisable", which is all it was ORIGINALLY, is better than any of your alternatives.
[+3] - Fido - 05/27/2011[quote="Setanta"] So when you made up that horseshit about contradictions in the constitution, was that an example of "insight" on your part? Is that what you mean by...
[+3] - JTT - 06/04/2011[quote]As far as i'm concerned, you've turned into a troll.[/quote] Just on this page you got 3 posts where you've been "trolling" Fido. Beth, look Set straight in the eye, give...

@hamilton,

The law currently states it is Constitutional:

"On March 11, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance in the case of Newdow v. Rio Linda Union School District. In a 2-1 decision, the appellate court ruled that the words were of a "ceremonial and patriotic nature" and did not constitute an establishment of religion. Judge Stephen Reinhardt dissented, writing that "the state-directed, teacher-led daily recitation in public schools of the amended 'under God' version of the Pledge of Allegiance... violates the Establishment Clause of the Constitution."

"On November 12, 2010, in a unanimous decision,the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston affirmed a ruling by a New Hampshire lower federal court which found that the pledge's reference to God doesn't violate students' rights."

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@Ragman,

is this why the stereotype islam hates america?

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@hamilton,

It isn't unconstitutional, but it's hypocritical, unnecessary and in bad taste. And that's without including the ridiculous reason it was added to the pledge in the first place.

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@hamilton,

total non-sequitur.

I know of no hate by Islamics of the US. Where is your proof that Islamics as a whole hates US?

Explain to me also who or what what exactly is a 'stereotype Islam'?

While you're there, please explain to me how this relates to the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance?

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@Ragman,

uhhh....
ok. bad joke. very bad. sorry. and very insensitive. sorry.

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@hamilton,

I have had a problem with the pledge since I was in high school. At first it started as a general discomfort. Here we were calling Soviet tactics propaganda and I felt that our pledge was similar. But, the discomfort coalesced into the one line you quoted above. God should have no part in the U.S. pledge, IMO.

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@hamilton,

From what I understand as an outsider looking into religious thinking, christians, jews, and muslims all believe in the same god. Perhaps I have that wrong.

1 Reply

@hamilton,

hamilton wrote:

"one nation, under GOD"...
wasnt the first big idea to have a seperation of church and state???

The pledge itself is neither constitutional nor unconstitutional. People can pledge allegiance to whatever what they want to. On the other hand, forcing people to say the pledge is unconstitutional because it violates their freedom of speech, whether the "under god" part is in it or not. In between, you have edge cases like the ones in the lawsuits mentioned in earlier posts. They deal with schools that led a reciting of the pledge, encouraged the students to participate, but didn't force them to. That's the kind of cases on which federal judges can disagree.

Personally, I find the pledge distasteful with or without god in it: Republics and their flags are mere tools through which people secure their human rights. Therefore it's unbecoming when a republic promotes itself to its citizens as an object of worship. That's why I intend to say the pledge exactly once in my life, immediately after I get my US citizenship. And even then, I do not intend to say the words "under god".

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@Thomas,

The words "under god" were not in the original text. They were added by Congress at the height of the McCarthyite red scare.

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@Setanta,

I know. So?

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Sorry, the response was not necessarily directed at you. It's a point for everyone here who is exercised about "under god" being a putative establishment violation.

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@littlek,

littlek wrote:

From what I understand as an outsider looking into religious thinking, christians, jews, and muslims all believe in the same god. Perhaps I have that wrong.

I was under the impression that God has a special concern that Jews should do their homework diligently and go to college. I suspect this was an eleventh commandment that might have fallen out of Moses' hands, and broke into pieces, on his way down from Mount Sinai.

Since the Christian world subscribes to the Ten (Eleven?) Commandments also, God must be happy that so many Gentiles also do their homework diligently and go to college.

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Here's a question I always meant to ask Jewish or Christian supporters of the US constitution, but somehow never got around to:

Simply as a matter of logic, the words "under god" in the pledge of allegiance either make a religious statement or they don't.

If they do make a religious statement, how did the statute rewriting the pledge not establish monotheism over polytheism and atheism? How did it not violate the First Amendment?
Or, if the words "under god" make no religious statement, how are Christians not using their lord's name in vain when they recite the pledge? How do they not violate Second Commandment?

One way or the other, how can the words "under god" in the pledge not trouble pro-Constitution Christians?

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For me, the most hilarious aspect of all of this is that the author of the pledge was both a preacher and a socialist--yet it was not he who put the words "under god" in the text. It just cracks me up whenever the conservative knuckle-draggers rush to defend the pledge--a socialist's statement of allegiance.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Here's a question I always meant to ask Jewish or Christian supporters of the US constitution, but somehow never got around to:

Simply as a matter of logic, the words "under god" in the pledge of allegiance either make a religious statement or they don't.

If they do make a religious statement, how did the statute rewriting the pledge not establish monotheism over polytheism and atheism? How did it not violate the First Amendment?

Or, if the words "under god" make no religious statement, how are Christians not using their lord's name in vain when they recite the pledge? How do they not violate Second Commandment?
One way or the other, how can the words "under god" in the pledge not trouble pro-Constitution Christians?

As a secular Jew, the words do not bother me, since I am aware that many people prefer these words ("under God") in the Pledge, and contrary to some popular belief, I do not want to "take over." Let the goyim have their wording. I am just grateful for being a citizen of this country. It is not my job to be divisive; no reason; this is not Czarist Russia.

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The "god" referred to in the pledge of allegiance is not the Christian god, it is the god of the supreme court. That god is a fundamentally secular individual. Nobody prays to that god or worships her, they just namecheck him every so often -- on coins, in the pledge, in the opening invocation at the start of each legislative day, etc. The god of the supreme court doesn't demand devotion, just a shout out every so often. In other words, it's not god they're talking about in the pledge of allegiance, it's just god.

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@joefromchicago,

Yea. Just like the lemon meringue pie I saw in the frozen food section the other day.
Its ingredients included no lemons, no egg whites, no flour that I could identify.
Not God, just god.
No lemons, no egg whites, no flour, just pie.

Joe(paper doily not included)Nation

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I learned the Pledge without "under god", then these damned radicals came along and screwed around with my Pledge, and I refuse to go along with them and their revisionism, and I will only say the original version. I guess that makes me a Conservative. Good. Now I can tell Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and their ilk that they are assholes from their own side of the fence.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

The "god" referred to in the pledge of allegiance is not the Christian god, it is the god of the supreme court. That god is a fundamentally secular individual.

Then how do Christians not violate the Second Commandment by reciting this reference to the Supreme Court's god?

EDIT: And how come the activists who campaigned for the inclusion of god all thought they were pushing a Christian agenda? Didn't they know they were lobbying for the inclusion of a fundamentally secular entity?

2 Replies

is the pledge unconstitutional?

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