Defending the Pledge - Like Any Religious Exercise

They never seem to realize it, but some defenders of government-endorsed religious exercises sometimes uses arguments for their position that actually make the case for the other side. Why don’t they realize it? Apparently, they are so abysmally ignorant of history and the issues that they just don’t realize that they are doing more to hurt their case than to help it.

Bill Smith writes in the Times Leader:

In the past - and if I am wrong, I stand corrected - but I believe that in schools, if students didn't wish to participate in offering the pledge, they simply left the classroom and returned when the recitation was completed. The same went for the Bible-reading that was a daily routine in the classroom. Those readings didn't seem to disrupt the classroom routine. ... Today, if a student doesn't want to read the pledge, he or she can leave the room and return when it's completed.

It is absolutely true that students who didn’t want to participate in the Bible reading (or prayer, interesting that Smith doesn’t mention this) could leave the classroom and return after the others were finished. You know what? That didn’t save either Bible reading or prayers from being found unconstitutional.

Why? Because being sent out was actually seen as part of the point: it was a very immediate and physical manifestation of the fact that those who didn’t agree with the religious exercises were outsiders in the community and that their status was essentially predicated upon their religious beliefs. Saying that students should leave if they don’t like it is to say that if you can’t express your patriotism without expressing the government-approved religious incantation, then you shouldn’t be around the rest of us while we do. Thus, Bill Smith provides us with a nice reason to think of the current wording of the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional.

Like I said, though, people like this seem to be abysmally ignorant:

And for those who are questioning the wording of the pledge and its constitutionality, I'd like to remind them of that World War II adage: "There are no atheists in fox holes."

It’s an adage, that much is true, but the adage itself is completely false. Apparently Bill Smith “writes for and about veterans,” but he must not write much because it wouldn’t take a great deal to find that there are a great many atheists in the military, including atheists who have seen combat and who haven’t “gotten religion” in the process.

Read More:

• Secularism 101
• Separation of Church and State 101
• Atheism 101
• Myths About Atheism
• Atheism in Society
• News About Atheism and Atheists