Remove God from the Pladge of Allegiance
...s court today, it is my belief that you would not allow such a thing. If this it true, than why would you allow such a religiously discriminatory comment to be present in the lives of our children everyday? One of the biggest arguments I have heard against removing “under God” from the pledge is that, by doing so, we would be removing Christianity from the United States completely. This is not true. The pledge does not say “under Danu”; there are no patriotic songs dedicated to Islam or Judaism; yet these religions continue to flourish in our country. No, removing God from our pledge would not remove him from our country. It would simply make room for more of that religious freedom we fight so strongly for. We fight for it even in other countries. On the other side of the world we condemn religious captivity and find it necessary to protect the people from it at almost any cost, yet here on our own soil we embrace and even promote it. Shortly after September 11th, 2001, we went to war with Afghanistan, risking thousands of American soldiers’ lives, to free the people there from the religious persecution they suffered. How is it that our very own country can fight so strongly against religious persecution across the globe, yet we cannot get rid of it ourselves? Imagine that you are living in a country very much like the United States we live in today. It has the same rules, freedoms, and principles. In fact, only one thing has changed: the religion. While you and your family are strong supporters of the Christian faith, the country you live in is 83 percent Buddhist. You and your family are not discriminated against because of your beliefs, however, the pledge to the country and many popular patriotic songs include Buddha repeatedly. By not taking part in these activities, you would “brand” yourselves as being unpatriotic. So what do you do? Do you do what you feel is right and not participate in acts that promote Buddhism, risking ridicule from your fellow citizens because of being unpatriotic? Or do you follow along silently, going against everything you believe in just to fit in? Personally, I don’t find either of these two options very appealing. So I’m making my own option: fight for what I feel is right. Even after all of this, one might say, “Wasn’t America founded on Christianity? Wouldn’t we be going against everything our forefathers believed in if we were to simply cut it out of the country like that?” My answer to all of this is no. Our founding fathers very strongly opposed the institutionalization of religion and were very careful about leaving out any mention of God in the Constitution and the founding of our country. The only time God is mentioned in the Constitution is to guarantee that religion would never be used as a qualification for holding office. And when Benjamin Franklin proposed during the Constitutional Convention that the founders begin each day of their labors with a prayer for guidance, his suggestion was defeated. Why should the Pledge of Allegiance be any different? When Francis Bellamy wrote it in 1892, I’m sure he had no idea that in 62 years, his expression of patriotism would be made into an unconstitutional expression of religion. Many people have questioned how the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutiona...