The Bush administration has now taken the amusing position that the words "under God" are, of all things, a "secular" reference to the nation's religious heritage. A history lesson, if you will.

That's not what President Eisenhower said in 1954 when he signed the law inserting the words into the pledge, which had been fine without them for the previous 62 years. He said it would proclaim "the dedication of our nation and our people to the almighty." A House committee report of the time said this would serve to "deny the atheistic and materialistic concepts of communism."

It is probably true that, as Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote, the founders of the American Republic didn't intend to create "a public square scrubbed free of God." Me neither. I think if we talked about religion more, in fact, there might be a wider understanding that this is not a subject on which we can assume unanimity. But talking about faith in God is not the same as forcing people to parrot words of faith they may or may not feel.

Jacoby also wrote that the health of our political institutions depends "on our ethics and religions." I'm with him on the ethics, but am alarmed by the notion that he may think we can't have ethics without religion. Religion is where some people locate the wellsprings of their ethics, but others find a different way. Does Jacoby find atheists like me unhealthy and unethical? The more such pronouncements I read, the more I wonder whether my childhood fears of being exposed as an unbeliever were really so irrational. Atheists aren't allowed to be Boy Scouts, for example, although admittedly I was already disqualified.

Surely no one believes that inserting the words "under God" in the pledge converts unbelievers or prevents backsliding. No, I think the real reason for the outrage at the thought of taking the words out is that most believers are furious that some people are offended by being instructed to utter the simplest, most basic tenet of their belief.

In a 1984 case, the Supreme Court ruled that the phrase "In God we trust" imprinted on our currency was not a problem because its significance has been lost through rote repetition. Not to me. I can read and I know what that means, and it means I'm not counted in the "we." Whatever. It's not like merchants force me to read my money aloud. If I were going to file a lawsuit, it wouldn't be about that.

Judge Ferdinand Fernandez of the Ninth Circuit wrote in his dissent to the pledge ruling that he didn't think the words "under God" were likely to bring about a theocracy. So? The Constitution doesn't say we should have separation of church and state only when it looks threatened by a theocracy. It says we should have separation of church and state. Laws aren't written to be ignored unless things get really bad.

Sandra Banning says that when she told her daughter (who, like a rape victim, goes unnamed in the media) that Newdow's suit could drag on for some time, the child replied "that it was OK because she will still whisper "one nation under God" and no one will hear her and know she is breaking the law. Of course it is not true that she would be "breaking the law," but it is a sad picture.

I'm sorry for the child because her parents are so antagonistic to each other, and I'm sorry for her because her unwanted status as a party in her father's lawsuit has probably made her the target of unwanted attention at school; but I'm not sorry for her if she wants all children to have to say the words she would like to say.

I'm sorry for her because I too have been a quiet child who felt pressure to say what others wanted me to say and not say the things they didn't like. I have been that child, and so I hope that none of the children in her class will be compelled to proclaim their religious views, or those of others, as part of the school day.

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