March 26, 2004
Pledge of Allegiance
It's remarkable to me how little I knew about the pledge before the Newdow case. For instance, until the Ninth Circuit decision, I had no idea that the "under God" section was added in 1954, lobbied for by "the Knights of Columbus, to draw attention to the difference between God-fearing Americans and the godless Soviet Union", as Jack Balkin points out.
I also didn't know that the pledge was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist and devotee of his cousin Edward Bellamy's national socialist ideas. Edward Bellamy is famous for writing Looking Backward, a socialist "utopian" novel.
And finally, I didn't realize that the original salute to the flag that accompanied the recitation of the pledge was not the hand-over-the-heart that we see today, but instead was the one associated with the "Sig Heil!" of the National Socialist German Worker's Party. Alex Tabarrok is right, these pictures of children saluting the flag are creepy.
They don't teach these things in elementary schoool, do they?
Oh, supposedly Newdow did quite well arguing the case before the Supreme Court yesterday.
Posted by richard at March 26, 2004 04:54 PMI knew it was added in the '50s to distinguish Americans from godless Communists. Didn't know that the Knights of Columbus were behind it (was this covered in The Da Vinci Code?). All the more reason for the excision to be upheld (which it probably won't, notwithstanding J. Scalia's recusal).
Although I would dispense with Congressional chaplains, "So help me God" inauguration and court testimony oaths, and "In God We Trust" as well, the Supreme Court (and this came from J. Brennan) has suggested that these "token" gestures to a Deity (and not to split hairs or anything, a Judeo-Christian Deity — oh, who are we kidding? Christian) to be too negligible to work a meaningful harm to the Constitution.
The Pledge's history, however, should distinguish it from these other routine references to God. A religious group actively sought to have the term included in order to make a statement about faith in America. You can do that on your own, but Congress simply can't legislate it.
Funny how half the time Newdow's opponents say that "under God" doesn't really hurt anybody because it's just a meaningless recital. Then the other half of the time people are phoning in death threats to the guy for trying to litigate it out. If the phrase is politically important enough to go to the fuss and bother (and burden to taxpayers) of having the Solicitor General defend it, then it's powerful enough to do constitutional damage.
It's about time people in America had a bit of a civics lesson and were taught that the constitutional bases of this nation (say, the Bill of Rights) are more important than its symbolic trappings.
Posted by: Brad A. at March 29, 2004 10:32 AM
