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[Matlock]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/12644867.htm

SAN FRANCISCO - Setting up another likely Supreme Court showdown over the Pledge of Allegiance, a federal judge ruled Wednesday that reciting the pledge in public schools is unconstitutional.

The judge granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist who lost his previous pledge case before the Supreme Court, and ruled that the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates their children's right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God."

(more in the link)

The godless commies just won in California! Alert McCarthy!

 

[Hitokage]

I'm pretty sure they mean the act of having all of the class recite it.

 

[darscot]

I can't belive you still do this in the US. Forcing anyone to pledge anything just seems absurd. The word God shouldn't even be an issue the whole thing is just plane wrong.

 

[Matlock]

I'm pretty sure they mean the act of having all of the class recite it.

I thought that was assumed--I was referencing "godless commies," as "under god" was only thrown in to keep the children from the atheist and communistic ideals.

 

[Hitokage]

Nah, just drawing a subtle distinction I've seen many miss.

 

[videogamer]

I'm pretty sure they mean the act of having all of the class recite it.

It's been a while since I've read up on this... but wasn't there the issue of a teacher or some school official leading the pledge without explicitly forcing the students to recite it?

 

[SteveMeister]

I believe that this is true, but we'll never see anything come of it.

 

[Tamanon]

Seems like the article on CNN is saying there's an actual restraining order from the pledge. Are they not allowing the pledge to be said at all while at school?

Nobody is forced to say the pledge of allegiance.

 

[Matlock]

Nobody is forced to say the pledge of allegiance.

I once got saturday school because I didn't want to say it.

 

[Tamanon]

I once got saturday school because I didn't want to say it.

And how long ago was this? No principal/dean would risk anything there.

 

[WedgeX]

Godless-Commies 1

McCarthy and the Knights of Columbus 0

 

[Matlock]

And how long ago was this? No principal/dean would risk anything there.

1997. It doesn't matter whether or not anything removing "under god" goes through, the majority of people are still close minded and won't entertain the idea of you not swearing your life to your nation and your god when "required" to.

 

[Lo-Volt]

The Pledge didn't even use God until the 1950s. What with all the godless Communists threatening America from within. :|

 

[Deleted member 4784]

I can't belive you still do this in the US. Forcing anyone to pledge anything just seems absurd. The word God shouldn't even be an issue the whole thing is just plane wrong.

Nobody is "forced" to recite the pledge... it is volluntary. The issue of whether it's existence in schools as a practice is coercive or not is an argument worth considering however.

 

[Hitokage]

Nobody is "forced" to recite the pledge... it is volluntary. The issue of whether it's existence in schools as a practice is coercive or not is an argument worth considering however.

Nobody is "forced" to do homework either, if we're gonna talk along those lines.

 

[Nerevar]

Nobody is "forced" to recite the pledge... it is volluntary. The issue of whether it's existence in schools as a practice is coercive or not is an argument worth considering however.

I would say the very fact that the teacher is leading the students makes it coercive (not to mention 90+% of the other students saying it), whether or not they even understand if they have an option to say it. Groupthink can be very coercive, especially to children who naturally have an overwhelming desire to "fit in".

 

[kablooey]

It's funny, I rarely ever stood for the pledge, and my teacher was fine with it. Hell, he rarely even stood for it himself, unless there were higher-ups present. :lol So I guess it depends on who's leading the recitation.

 

[teh_pwn]

Nobody is "forced" to recite the pledge... it is volluntary. The issue of whether it's existence in schools as a practice is coercive or not is an argument worth considering however.

In elementary and middle school in Tennessee, you got sent to the principal's office for not doing the pledge.

Yep, quite voluntary indeed.


Obviously people against removing it think it's important. If it really wasn't a big deal, why all the pressure to keep it in?

And I love how the conservative christians give the rubuttal: "it's our history. It's what the founding fathers set this nation up for" or "atheists are trying to force christians to do things"

 

[ronito]

In before reference to an imaginary war on christianity.

 

[fart]

In before reference to an imaginary war on christianity.

QFT.
back to the supreme court i guess

 

[Dan]

I would say the very fact that the teacher is leading the students makes it coercive (not to mention 90+% of the other students saying it), whether or not they even understand if they have an option to say it. Groupthink can be very coercive, especially to children who naturally have an overwhelming desire to "fit in".

Yeah, I went to a pretty liberally minded district, but even there, if you didn't stand for the pledge and recite it, the other students would notice and make a big deal out of it either in being offended or making fun, and sometimes even the teachers would be offended.

The pledge certainly shouldn't contain the "in God we trust" line, but I kinda question the appropriateness of the whole thing as well.

 

[Instigator]

How did the pledge of allegiance get into schools in the first place?

 

[Dan]

How did the pledge of allegiance get into schools in the first place?

Here you go.

The Pledge of Allegiance was written for the popular children's magazine Youth's Companion by socialist author and Baptist minister Francis Bellamy on 11 October 1892. The owners of Youth's Companion were selling flags to schools, and approached Bellamy to write the Pledge for their advertising campaign. It was marketed as a way to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus arriving in the Americas and was first published on the following day, 12 October.

Bellamy's original Pledge read as follows: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It was seen by some Brightonians as a call for national unity and wholeness after the divisive Civil War. Bellamy had initially also considered using the words equality and fraternity but decided they were too controversial since many people still opposed equal rights for women and African Americans.

After a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison, the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892 during Columbus Day observances. The form adopted inserted the word "to" before "the Republic", a minor matter of grammar.

 

[Fragamemnon]

I heard the words godless and communist and felt the strong urge to reply!

Seriously, though, those words shouldn't be there at all. From my perspective, it's public government endorsing (through the recitation in a public school) one faith and religion/creed over another, and that's a big no-no. The solution isn't easy to fix, either-the pledge is everywhere, and without modification, given this ruling, it wouls seem that it isn't any different than, say, putting a big honking statue of the Ten Commandments in your courthouse (sound familiar?).

 

[maharg]

The Pledge of Allegiance was written for the popular children's magazine Youth's Companion by socialist author and Baptist minister Francis Bellamy on 11 October 1892 ... and was first published on the following day, 12 October.

...

the Pledge was first used in public schools on October 12, 1892 during Columbus Day observances. The form adopted inserted the word "to" before "the Republic", a minor matter of grammar.

That was fast.

 

[DDayton]

Hmm... this will be interesting, if only because it will lead to a debate between the intentions of the founding fathers as seen in the Declaration of Independence and the guidelines strictly laid out in the Constitution.

 

[Nerevar]

Hmm... this will be interesting, if only because it will lead to a debate between the intentions of the founding fathers as seen in the Declaration of Independence and the guidelines strictly laid out in the Constitution.

why should it? The founding fathers fathers had nothing to do with the pledge.

Oh wait, I forgot, the people pushing for it's inclusing are ignorant bigots. That's my favorite part of America!

 

[Hitokage]

Hmm... this will be interesting, if only because it will lead to a debate between the intentions of the founding fathers as seen in the Declaration of Independence and the guidelines strictly laid out in the Constitution.

Also the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom(Jefferson) and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments(Madison).

...but this is about a line added by catholics to a pledge written by a socialist.

 

[Deleted member 4784]

Nobody is "forced" to do homework either, if we're gonna talk along those lines.

Which is why I said: "The issue of whether it's existence in schools as a practice is coercive or not is an argument worth considering however."

I would say the very fact that the teacher is leading the students makes it coercive (not to mention 90+% of the other students saying it), whether or not they even understand if they have an option to say it. Groupthink can be very coercive, especially to children who naturally have an overwhelming desire to "fit in".

Strictly speaking as a legal issue, I agree. That was exactly how the US Supreme Court saw the issue in the 1960's with Engel v. Vitale, when a public school principal lead the students in prayer every morning. The principal argued that reciting the prayer did not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because participation on the part of the students and teachers was "voluntary". The US Supreme Court ruled that even though the prayer itself was for the most part non-denominational and voluntary, it was still unconstitutional. Mentioning "God" in the prayer was still distinguishing a specific family of religions (in this case, Monotheism) and although it was voluntary, participation by peers and adults could make the environment itself coercive in nature.

The US Supreme Court came up with a way of testing whether or not an action violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in Lemon v. Kurtzman -- known as the "Lemon Test" -- which consists of the following three rules:

1.) The action must have a legitimate secular purpose.
2.) The action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion.
3.) The action must not result in an "excessive entanglement" of the government and religion.

IMHO, going by both the stare decisis of Engel v. Vitale and the Lemon Test itself, it is hard for one to argue against the outcome of this federal case. I am curious as to what level of the federal courts this decision was handed down from.

 

[ChrisReid]

Yeah, I went to a pretty liberally minded district, but even there, if you didn't stand for the pledge and recite it, the other students would notice and make a big deal out of it either in being offended or making fun, and sometimes even the teachers would be offended.

Bingo! Even if you're not in a school where you'll be officially punished for not reciting it, you'll be publicly frowned upon all around by dozens of people who are saying it just because everyone else is. The god line in the pledge has bugged me as far back into elementary school as I can remember. I'm all for being pro-America, but I'm not religious at all, and it always weirded me out to have to say we were one nation, under god. But I said it every day, because I didn't want to get teased like the jehovah's witness person who just stood there silently during the pledge.