What a sordid little past our Pledge of Allegiance really has.
On Monday, the Supreme Court added a small chapter to that historical timeline. The phrase "under God" - droned without comprehension by millions of grade-schoolers for decades - was challenged by a California father for allegedly violating the First Amendment's promise that government shall not establish any favored religion. His argument presumably suggested that the daily patriotic oath is a widely-accepted prayer in public school.
The Supreme Court heard the case - sans Justice Antonin Scalia - and ruled that "under God" will remain in the daily pledge until its legality is challenged again. Not because of pressure from the Bush administration, not because the court found "under God" within legal parameters and not because of America's perceived Christian heritage.
The court poked the decision aside with a 10-foot pole because the father from California did not have legal custody of his daughter. Since the man was not her legal guardian, he was not within the law to speak as her legal voice.
Case closed. The phrase "under God" stays. Preach on.
It should be tough for the Supreme Court to top themselves in this blatant exercise of buck-passing. The issue of the pledge's legality was ignored on Monday - Flag Day, after all - and it shall be constitutional until someone else pleads their case to the highest court in the land. It's disconcerting that the Supreme Court is willing to sidestep a constitutional issue, given that the pledge's history is anything but free of controversy.
For more than 100 years, public school children have commenced their day by reciting that prose penned by a radical socialist, Francis Bellamy. Originally, Bellamy's oath to nationalism 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."
The pledge as we know it today added "the flag of the United States of America," lest immigrant school children identify with their native flag over the stars and stripes. Until World War II, the pledge was given with the right arm held rigidly aloft until that practice was popularly adopted by the Nazi party in Germany.
In 1954, "under God" was added so that the allegedly Godless Communists fighting the Cold War would see that America was in favor of divine intervention.
The Pledge of Allegiance - from patriotic oath to anti-Communist, unconstitutional public prayer habit in slightly more than 100 years. Francis Bellamy must be very proud.
"Under God" are the two words in the pledge that alienate individuals seeking to voice their patriotism. Legal battles have given Americans no obligation to pledge their allegiance, and this is certainly neither the first nor the last time the pledge will be challenged as a public prayer. The phrase's outright removal is the most prudent measure in eliminating the clouding controversy behind this augmented oath, and the only way its original intent will be restored.
