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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
If California schools keep the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, there will be kids like I was, who will remain silent, move their lips and hope that patriotic peers don't catch them.
Sep 6, 2002 | As public schools open across the West, school districts face the question of what to do about the Pledge of Allegiance. Many kids, depending on those decisions, will face the question of what to say. In June, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that children could not be made to say the pledge in its current form because it includes the words "under God." But the phrase -- inserted by Congress in 1954 in a fit of collective self-righteousness -- has created conflict for students for much longer.
At this point, because the Ninth Circuit decision is under appeal, schools are free to instruct kids to recite the God-enhanced version of the pledge. Recalling my own schooldays, when those words created a painful moment every day, I hope they don't.
The ostensible cause of the pledge suit is a third-grader, the daughter of Michael Newdow and Sandra Banning. Newdow, an atheist who lives in Sacramento, Calif., filed suit arguing that his daughter should not be forced to watch and take part in a ritual including mention of God, and the majority of the court agreed.
This decision, as might be expected in these times, caused a huge flap, and afforded certain congressman the chance to summon cameras to view them reciting the pledge -- including "under God" -- and singing "God Bless America" on the Capitol steps. Had someone handed them flags, I am sure they would have wrapped themselves in them.
I'm an atheist, and I was particularly distressed by the part of the furor which involved public figures across the land proudly renouncing atheism and vowing to combat their oppression by atheists. But the last straw for me, the one that made me feel I'd kept my heathen mouth shut long enough, was an editorial cartoon showing Newdow's daughter being crucified on an international "no" symbol by her callous atheistic father.
This display came on the heels of the child's mother, Sandra Banning, announcing to the press that her daughter is not an atheist, that she does not want people to think that her daughter is an atheist, and that she doesn't want her daughter to be a party to the suit. (The parents, unsurprisingly, have not been a couple for some time.)
Banning's lawyer also says that Banning doesn't want her child to be "branded for the rest of her life as the girl who was the atheist in the pledge case."
It's not clear that Newdow's lawsuit hinges on his daughter's being an atheist who does not wish to utter words of religious faith in the course of pledging allegiance to her country. Newdow has spoken of his right to guide his child's religious education (although now that the mother says she has full custody, it's unclear whether he indeed has that right), a statement which gives no hint of the child's beliefs.
Perhaps it is true that, in this case, the father's lawsuit misrepresents the convictions of the child. Perhaps the high point of her day is the chance to intone the words "under God" as part of the pledge. And I can certainly believe that being known as a party in her father's lawsuit could create social agony for the girl. If I could, I would gladly put my younger self forward as a suitable plaintiff, because saying those words did indeed make me unhappy.
I've always been an atheist. I'm a third-generation atheist on one side of my family, second-generation on the other. When I was 6 or 7, a family friend gave me a book of Bible stories, which I liked (my favorite was the story of Moses and Aaron), but which didn't make me a believer. When I asked my parents about God, they said that was a matter of personal conviction, and I could decide for myself when I got older. I was a serious, precocious child, and I didn't wait to decide -- but my beliefs haven't been shaken with time.
