Civil
Liberties
The Pledge of Allegiance and God
A Sermon by Arthur S. Vaeni
August 11, 2002
As a cadet at the United States Military Academy I participated in
a lot of parades. Complaining about having to participate in yet another
parade, was part of the pre-parade ritual among many of the cadets.
I was no exception, and my complaining was quite sincere. Many of us
disliked having to get into our dress uniform regalia to go march before
a bunch of gawking civilians who came to see cadets on parade. The only
thing worse was doing so on those days when there were no gawking civilians.
Nonetheless, however jaded I became about marching, I always felt strong
emotions arising from pride, honor, a sense of duty stir within my breast
when we passed before the flag or when the honor guard passed before
us.
I had deep feelings about what the flag of the United States of America
represents, and I do to this day. I mention this as a preface to my
comments about the recent controversy concerning the pledge of allegiance.
Although I do not agree with most of the responses I have read from
those who oppose the ruling, I have some appreciation for the emotions
out of which those responses may arise.
The significance of the flag and the meanings it holds are deeply embedded
in the psyches of large segments of our nation's population.
The controversy to which I'm referring, of course, was sparked on June
26, when the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which
includes the state of Washington, ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance
is unconstitutional because the phrase, "one nation under God"
violates the separation of church and state. There were immediate responses
from a number of politicians. The New York Times reported, "With
what was lightning speed for their chamber, senators voted 99 to 0 just
hours after the ruling to express their strong disagreement with the
decision and to authorize their counsel to intervene in the case. As
the Senate voted, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert led dozens of House members
gathered on the steps of the Capitol in a recitation of the pledge followed
by a spontaneous rendition of 'God Bless America.'"
There were other voices as well, such as those of a New York Times
editorial staff, who determined that while the ruling may have been
well-meaning, it lacked commonsense. The editors wrote, "A generic
two-word reference to God tucked inside a rote civic exercise is not
a prayer. Mr. Newdow's daughter" (Mr. Newdow brought the suit against
his daughter's school where the pledge was recited.) "is not required
to say either the words 'under God' or even the pledge itself, as the
Supreme Court made clear in a 1943 case involving Jehovah's Witnesses…"
They went on to say, "The practical impact of the ruling is inviting
a political backlash for a matter that does not rise to a constitutional
violation. We wish the words had not been added back in 1954. But just
the way removing a well-lodged foreign body from an organism may sometimes
be more damaging than letting it stay put, removing those words would
cause more harm than leaving them in."
I have heard a similar opinions expressed by others whose perspectives
I generally appreciate. It's an opinion that has certain merit. A news
story from the Fresno, California paper, The Bee, offers an example:
"The pastor of Fresno's Unitarian Universalist Church, Bryan Jessup,
stood at the back of Friday's noontime gathering holding a handmade
sign reading, "Under God? What does it mean-and to whom? "Good
question. Wrong venue. There was no room here to exercise that most
basic of freedoms essential to our democracy-free speech. Fresno County
Supervisor Bob Waterston took the stage and pointed a finger at Jessup
and told him, 'You're telling me with that sign that you are not part
of the solution. Why don't you move out of the country? We don't want
you here.'"
"'He is asking everybody what God is. He should know. Why not
make him go somewhere else?'
asked twelve year old Sarah Smotherman, who along with her ten year
old sister destroyed Jessup's sign
and threw it in the City Hall fountain, with the approval of their mother.
Jessup watched the two girls and said, 'Is God about violence or is
God about love and respect and honoring different people? In this Valley,
people come in many different forms.' Jessup said that while he is comfortable
personally saying "under God" in the pledge of allegiance,
he is concerned that there is no acknowledgment that 'Good Americans
can love America and think differently.'"
"The Fresno Bee then deemed that the court ruling was foolish,
but not dangerous. "What's dangerous," they wrote, "is
the mob sentiments that surfaced at the Friday rally. What's dangerous
is the number of elected leaders who inflame those passions rather than
quelling them-who in fact intentionally ignore opportunities to do so.
What's dangerous is the trampling of cherished constitutional rights
without a whimper of protest from the majority in attendance. That's
what's dangerous."
( The Fresno Bee story borrowed from The Rev. Meg A.
Riley's sermon, One Nation Under God, Preached July 7, 2002
All Souls Church, Unitarian, Washington DC)
Fresno's Bee is correct that the trampling of free speech and inflaming
such passions by elected officials is most dangerous. This is precisely
the type of response to which the New York Times' editors were
referring when they spoke of the danger of dislodging the foreign object,
"under God." I would suggest, however, that the intensity
of the response reveals the very real importance of this issue. It reveals
the presumption held by many of our citizens that not only do we as
a nation have a shared understanding of God and of God's relationship
to America, but we should have such a shared understanding. It's the
kind of presumption found in Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle's words,
when he disagreed with the appellate court's ruling on the pledge: "We
have been drawn together in the face of tremendous tragedy in the last
nine months and in part that healing has come by our belief in a supreme
being." (NYT, 6/27/02, p. A21)
There is, of course, nothing wrong with having such a shared understanding
among a majority of citizens, providing there is also a shared acceptance
of differing views, and providing there is acknowledgment, as my colleague,
Bryan Jessup, said that 'Good Americans can love America and think differently.'
Or to frame it somewhat differently as did my colleague, Meg Riley,
in her sermon on this issue: "How do we acknowledge the rights
of minorities in an increasingly pluralistic nation, while still creating
language and culture which bind us all together in mutual care?"
I believe the Court was correct in taking the issue seriously and
in ruling as it did. The Pledge of Allegiance is intended to play an
important role in shaping our self-understanding as citizens of this
nation. It's true, as some have pointed out, those people who disagree
with having the phrase "under God" in the pledge can simply
remain silent when that part is spoken, but that solution misses an
important point. That point is the rationale for adding the phrase,
"under God," in the first place.
The Pledge of Allegiance was created in the 1890's by a socialist clergyman,
Francis Bellamy. According to an Associated Press account: "Bellamy
crafted it as a resonating oration to bolster the idea that the middle
class could fashion a planned political and social economy, equitable
for all."
Life is filled with peculiar ironies, such as a socialist inspired pledge
at the heart of the world's foremost capitalist nation. The phrase,
"under God," was added to the pledge in 1954 in the midst
of the 'Cold War.' The proponents of the phrase felt the need to distinguish
our Pledge of Allegiance
from similar orations used by 'godless communists.'
The phrase was added explicitly to distinguish Americans from the godless.
Having it added to the Pledge of Allegiance for that reason seems to
be a clear indication we are excluding from our communion of good citizens
those who are godless, and those who are godless may well include those
who do not believe in God in the same way as the majority. It's not
unreasonable for atheists, agnostics and others whose theology differs
from the majority to feel excluded or to feel a sense of dis-ease regarding
the phrase, "under God." Of course, the New York Times'
editors are correct. If the appellate court's ruling is ever actually
implemented, and the phrase is removed, there undoubtedly will be a
strong backlash.
Sometimes humor can exacerbate a situation like this, if people feel
their concerns are being taken lightly, but sometimes good humor can
help relieve the tension surrounding a controversy. Either way our nation's
wits won't be deterred, so we might hear their take on it. When asked
his opinion about the inclusion of the phrase, "under God,"
Robin Williams suggested it would be more accurate to say "one
nation under Canada."
In its created news story from last June, SatireWire wrote: "A
U.S. federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that reciting the Pledge
of Allegiance in public school is unconstitutional because it contains
the phrase "under God," a decision that has infuriated politicians
from both parties, and sent the United States on a desperate search
for a new sponsor. While the U.S. Justice Department said it plans to
appeal the ruling, officials are quietly speaking with several potential
sponsors interested in having their brands associated with America,
and are already test-marketing the phrases 'One nation, under Wal-Mart'…
and 'One nation, but 24,000 Starbucks'." Actually, I suspect those
substitutes would not work, but if the humor fulfilled one of its invaluable
roles of loosening our vise-grip on tightly held perspectives, then
we may be open to considering a different suggestion altogether.
Earlier I mentioned that in 1943, the Supreme Court involving Jehovah's
Witnesses. It ruled that the West Virginia State Board of Education
could not require Jehovah's Witnesses to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Court's decision described the situation in this way: "The
Witnesses are an unincorporated body teaching that the obligation imposed
by law of God is superior to that of laws enacted by temporal government.
Their religious beliefs include a literal version of Exodus, Chapter
20, verses 4 and 5, which says: 'Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them.' They consider that
the flag is an 'image' within this command. For this reason they refuse
to salute it."
The Jehovah's Witnesses may well have had it right in that case. Last
May I wrote a "Perspectives" column for The Olympian.
in which I described what I called pseudo-patriotism. In the article
I said: "Pseudo-patriots believe… our nation can do no wrong.
For them our country has become the standard against which right and
wrong are measured. Doing so, they make our nation a false idol. We
create false idols whenever we treat that which is less than ultimate
as if it were ultimate. From that perspective whatever our nation does
to further its fight against terrorism is right…
One of religion's important roles is to help us become oriented to
that which is truly ultimate. It provides us with a way of understanding
life that takes us beyond ourselves, our families, our society and our
country. It points us toward the possibility of perceiving life's larger
truth which some name as God."
Although the Jehovah's Witnesses understanding about life's larger
truth and mine are very different, we share the understanding that no
nation should fulfill the role of being the ultimate measure of right
and wrong. I would contend that the Pledge of Allegiance moves us in
the direction of perceiving this nation as having ultimate value. At
least, as a nation that's explicitly under God's sponsorship, as SatireWire
proposed, we can justify our actions as being part of God's plan or
being divinely ordained. Don't misunderstand me. I am not suggesting
we should not place a high value on our nation's well-being or that
we not commit ourselves to sustaining its great virtues of liberty,
justice and equality. I am simply proposing that however well intentioned
the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance it may contribute to the reality
of what I called pseudo-patriotism -the infusing of our country with
ultimate value.
While, as citizens of this nation, we have a responsibility to serve
its well-being in order to preserve and deepen the virtues of liberty,
justice and equality, we should also never forget that we do not exist
for this nation, but this nation exists that we might most faithfully
grow into our humanity - a humanity we share not just with other Americans
but with all other people. I will close with words taken from the 1943
Supreme Court decision to which I referred earlier. This decision, written
by Justice Robert Jackson, contains a passage I find quite useful for
reflecting upon this issue and upon our roles as citizens.
"Of course patriotism cannot be enforced by the flag salute. But
neither can the liberal spirit be enforced by judicial invalidation
of illiberal legislation. Our constant preoccupation with the constitutionality
of legislation rather than with its wisdom tends to preoccupation of
the American mind with a false value. The tendency of focusing attention
on constitutionality is to make constitutionality synonymous with wisdom,
to regard a law as all right if it is constitutional. Such an attitude
is a great enemy of liberalism. Particularly in legislation affecting
freedom of thought and freedom of speech much which should offend a
free?spirited society is constitutional. Reliance for the most precious
interests of civilization, therefore, must be found outside of their
vindication in courts of law. Only a persistent positive translation
of the faith of a free society into the convictions and habits and actions
of a community is the ultimate reliance against unabated temptations
to fetter the human spirit."
May we remember as the notable Unitarian minister, A. Powell Davies,
asserted, "[f]reedom is itself the basic precept of [our] faith."
May we serve the cause of freedom, seeking to diminish all that fetters
the human spirit. Amen
