PART FOUR
– Summary and Concluding Remarks
To summarize, the critical issues in the pledge controversy
are existential, historical, and of a matter of judicial and congressional
authority. First, there is the primary
issue of whether or not there exists is a singular omnipotent supernatural
intelligence in the first place. Clearly
not all citizens in this nation agree.
However, not even the Supreme Court has the right to rule one way or
another. Second, even if it the
existence of such a being were provable, which it is not, there would still be
the issue of whether the deity “God”, versus some other deity, is in fact that
being. Clearly again, not all citizens
agree on this issue, and equally as clearly again, not even the Supreme Court
has the right to decide it one way or another.
The government has no legitimate justification to transcend the mandates
of the First Amendment and extend any special difference to God or any other
deity. On this basis alone, the
Justice Department appeal was clearly in the wrong to challenge the legitimacy
of the Ninth Circuit Court majority ruling.
The tangible issues boil down to the proposition that our nation
“was founded on a fundamental belief in God” and the historical evidence for or
against it. Undoubtedly, belief in a
deity called “God” was part of the “religious heritage” imported from the old
world and thus resided with some indeterminate number of people during the
founding days of the nation. Still, the
greater weight of historical evidence does not substantiate the notion that all
the founders believed in “God”, or that those who did, did so exclusively. As per specific instance, careful examination
of the Declaration of Independence supports neither the notion of a singular
supreme being nor the proposition that the Nation was founded on one. The single most decisive historical evidence
is the Constitution itself. Nowhere
within is there any reference whatsoever to a deity called “God”. In fact, it specifically mandates against
government entanglement with religion.
On this basis alone, the notion that our nation was founded on a
fundamental belief in God is clearly untenable. Therefore, any court that
previously decided otherwise was clearly in the wrong. Any court that now follows such bad
precedent will also clearly be wrong.
To selectively reject, use, or misuse judicial criterion to justify the
imposition of deity, amounts to a judicially defective and dangerous mode of
action. The so-called “historical test”
has no basis of justification in the Constitution, only in matters of factional
religious sentiment.
Even in view of all of this, if the courts still fail to see
the problem with the “under God” pledge, then they should consider the
historical issues of “heritage” from a different perspective. The history and culture of this nation is
composed of many “heritages” each one just as essential to the nation’s
identity as its “religious heritage”.
Why should religion have special license to impose itself on our Pledge
of Allegiance? There is just as much
“historical justification” to favor the phraseology “under Science”, or “under
Capitalism”, “under the Arts”, “under Agriculture”, “under Education”, or “under the Militia”. Although this perspective is pluralistic in
nature, the inevitable conclusion is the same.
The imposition of the phrase “under God” is blatant favoritism. The
theistic ideology inherent in the phrase “under God” is not even representative
of the more comprehensive sphere of the nation’s religious legacy either.
If we are to subjugate the import of the Pledge under
anything at all, then it should be “under the Constitution”, which is this
Nation’s unique sacred heritage, a transcendent gift bestowed upon us by the
works of the Founders. The existence of
divine providence is equally as un-provable as the existence of supernatural
beings. If such phenomenon were to have
substance ascribable to any document, religious or not religious, then the
Constitution must certainly stand as divinely inspired, if not more divinely
inspired, than any piece of writing ever created before it. Is this latter statement just a bald-faced
assertion of personal belief? Considering
the evidence of history, I do not believe it is. The United States Constitution is a superior crystallization of
the best lawgiving of the ages, and what is more, it is the Supreme Law of this
Nation! (quote)
What is painfully objectionable
about past judgments is the manifest lack of respect for the people’s Sixth
Article protections from religious test.
As an undeniable Constitutional fact, belief in “God”, or any other
deity for that matter, is not a requirement of citizenship. The notion that no one is required to take
the Pledge does not dispel the significance of the breach of trust. The presence of the phase “under God” makes
the current official Pledge a religious test by definition. Since, no religious test is required, the
government is in severe error to officially prescribe a pledge whose wording
clearly implies that belief in “God” is a requirement of citizenship.
Even
with all this discrepancy set aside, are the teachers even informing the
children that they have a choice between taking the pledge, standing silent, or
leaving the room, and if so, how often?
Why in most instances are those who dissent, compelled to stand if they
do not choose to leave the room? What
of the rights of the teachers conscripted to initiate the Pledge on a daily
basis? Can they refuse to officiate to
the ceremony and/or leave the room if they so chose? What of their careers if they exercise their so called “right”
of dissent by acting on these latter “choices”? How can any teacher in this nation’s public school system
possibly do justice to the true heritage and meaning of the Constitution under
the travesty of this government-mandated act of idolatry? What does the government, and by default the
public school system, have to say to the teachers who are loyal to the true
import of the Sixth Article and the First Amendment regarding protections
against religious loyalty tests and separation between government and religion? “Suck it up and conform or go find another
profession”? Well, many if not most of
them were purged by attrition or pushed out before their time, and now none can
replace them to teach the Constitution and true meaning of national allegiance
as it should be taught and still hope to survive as professional public school
teachers. The manifest impact of the
self-evident injury has damaged the integrity and quality of education in
America right down to its nationalistic roots.
“High school students and adults tend to
misunderstand the federal judiciary's role in dealing with disputes about the
meaning and application of constitutional rights. In the Center for Civic
Education study, most students had misconceptions about judicial review and
were unaware of the perennial conflict between judicial review and majority
rule (Quigley et al. 1987, 5). These conclusions were paralleled by the Hearst
Report, which also found that about half of the adult respondents misconceived
the role and powers of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system of
separated powers and checks and balances (1987, 23-26). Michael Kammen's
history of the Constitution in American culture documents the long-standing
public ambivalence to and misunderstanding of the Supreme Court's role in
protecting individual rights against the potential tyranny of majority rule.” (see: ERIC_Digests/ed298076.html
for full text)
Considering
this along with all other evidence discussed, the existence of injury is rather
evident. Is it not injury to the very
solvency of the Constitution, the sacred heritage of the Founders? Is it not injury to the integrity of the
courts and the legislative process, and consequently to the system of
separated powers and checks and balances among the arms of government? Is it not injury to the rights of the children and their teachers
and the many of us others? Is it not injury to the sole of this nation and to
its posterity? My own personal injury,
although painfully real enough, is just one instance among many that
collectively amount to a ubiquitous syndrome to which the courts must not turn
a blind or callused eye.
The bottom line is that belief in "God"
or any deity for that matter is not a requirement of citizenship in this
country, whereas conformance to the law (Constitutional Law) is a requirement
of citizenship in good standing. The Sixth
Article of the Constitution mandates that, "no religious test shall
ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the
United States", and the First Amendment mandates that, "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Those people who break these laws and
otherwise coerce others into breaking them, are not citizens or politicians in
good standing, they are enemies to just and fair law and therefore enemies to
the common good. Taking allegiance to
deity is what people are at liberty to do in their houses of worship or
personal homes if they so choose.
Beyond that, their license to conscript anyone to their deities and
proselytizations is virtually non-existent, and it certainly does not include
free license to pollute the common ground of our nationalism via its core
ceremonies of oath taking! Using
government authority to force a choice between taking a pledge that amounts to
a religious test versus sucking it up in silence with no pledge at all is the
worst kind of political bigotry imaginable.
It is not fair, nor impartial, nor is it just. What is more, IT IS AGAINST THE STANDING CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF
THIS NATION! The U.S. 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals ruling that the phraseology, "under God" is an
"impermissible government endorsement of religion", was both
constitutionally correct and justified on all grounds legitimately relevant to
the issue. Washington has an obligation
to submit to the specification of a constitutionally valid Pledge or submit to
complete repeal of all statutes prescribing the official use of any pledge at
all.
Congress and the courts should never have allowed the
Pledge, the core ceremony of our nationalism, to get so badly tangled up with
matters of deity as they did in 1954 and have allowed since. In so doing, they aided and abetted the
commission of a profound classificatory error. If honorable and just
acknowledgment of the unconstitutionality of the present pledge would put other
more peripheral concessions to religion in danger of revocation, then so be
it. Perhaps the time for such a house
cleaning is long past due. Perhaps it
is time to reevaluate the concessions currently in effect with an eye to either
removing them or rendering them more legitimate with regard to government
neutrality and religious pluralism.
Perhaps it is necessary to protect this nation’s true legacy of
enlightened civil law from the insidious destructiveness of theocracy, or any
other corrupting influence on congressional law making. Speaking of same, exactly what is this
“integral part of the systematic development of constitutional doctrine” and
who first coined the phrase? More
verbal moonshine intended to create an aura of legitimacy for an evolving tradition
of subverting the Constitution in the service of theocracy. Are we to presuppose that this so-called
“integral part of constitutional doctrine” is to take precedence over the
literal import of the Constitution itself?
We must stand up and protect this nation’s principles of liberty,
equality, and justice, for our own sakes and for our posterity, or they will be
lost. At the core of it, the
ideological import of the current pledge is unacceptably corrupt and dangerous,
having fostered enumerable injuries for five decades. It is in severe need of either abandonment as a ceremonial act, a
return to the pre-1954 Pledge, or refurbishment to better protect its
nationalistic import against the devices of power hungry religious
factions. In consideration of this
latter matter, the present letter of petition ends with the following thought.
I pledge
allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, - and to the
CONSTITUTION for which it stands, - one Nation indivisible, with Equality,
Liberty, and Justice for all.
E Pluribus Unum!
Edward George, United States
Citizen
REFERENCES
United
States Constitution
Newdow’s Website
Full
Text of the Ruling
Full Text of
the Appeal
Supreme Court Ruling
against Standing
Newdow’s Brief on Merits