I don't think that they should have added that language to the Pledge as cavalierly as they did. It's been fifty years, though, and I, personally, wouldn't make an issue of it being there. Too destructive to raise the issue, IMO.
Having said that, the folks that are pushing it in the schools need to exercise a little forbearance as well and not make an issue of it by insisting on it in schools.
I don't understand how reference to a generic "God" would be incompatible with someone's "religious beliefs."
The basic problem with making kids say the Pledge, as is, in schools is that it conveys the message from the government, the school district, that kids or teachers who cannot, in good conscience, wholeheartedly make that Pledge because they don't believe in God or in a deity called "God" cannot be good and loyal US citizens. If you cannot see what is wrong with that, I don't think there is any way I can explain it to you. |
