- November 23, 2024
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+ Pledge of Allegiance redux
Dear Editor:
On Feb. 2, Brian McMillan, had a piece titled “The pledge that almost went wrong.” It is an interesting and humorous piece written around an affair where there was some difficulty in saying the Pledge of Allegiance because it took multiple attempts and some amount of time to find a star-spangled banner.
After the comical introduction of the tangled events leading up to the final pledge, Mr. McMillan proceeds to a bit of philosophy. He states that the pledge is a vow where one promises always to be faithful and to fight for the ideals for which the Republic stands, and he states those ideals are first God, second liberty, and third justice for all.
Mr. McMillan describes the ceremony of the pledge as a community sharing an “intensely private expression of commitment and belief.” Publicly stating the Pledge of Allegiance is hardly a private expression. The pledge should be fully acceptable to each and every citizen.
Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution does the word “god” appear. Our Founding Fathers feared most monarchy and religion in government. The senior citizens in our country can remember a Pledge of Allegiance that was repeated each morning before classes began, a pledge which did not contain the word “god.” For citizens who do not profess or wish to confess to a belief in a god, the pledge raises an issue that most avoid by omitting or mumbling past the inserted word.
Anyone who has taken the oath when being inducted into the armed forces knows they vowed to protect the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. Nowhere in that oath does one vow to project or protect a belief in God.
We were constituted to be a nation free from religious regulation and religious interference in governing. Since the word “god” was inserted into the pledge it is no longer in concert with our Constitution and it has become a discomfort to a sizeable portion of the nation who does not share a belief in gods or demons.
Skipper Hanzel
Palm Coast
