Excuse me, but it was you who used word "traditions" several times.
Okay, let's stick to religious traditions, and the new word, principles.
We were talking about children in the classroom. I think you want to have it two ways: First, that children are confused and baffled when their religious traditions/beliefs are contradicted in a classroom, presumably because are too young to really understand or defend these traditions/beliefs. Second, that it is a tremendously important Constitutional principle that no one be coerced by hearing a religious belief advocated in a public classroom.
I think we have mutually contracting ideas here. If children are basically clueless as to what being an "atheist" even means, then it would be hard to see where hearing words like "under God, would be anything more than harmless gibberish to them, and could not be coercive. If, on the other hand, these children are open to the possibility of religious coercion, then it must mean that they do (like their parents) understand what being an atheist is, understand that they are being challenged and contradicted, and thus are well able to defend themselves from any corruption of their beliefs. The latter is even more so, when the "coercion" consists solely of just hearing, without elaboration, those two little words, "under god."
(IMO) the logical hypothesis would be this: That parents have instructed their children that they are atheists, knowing full well that the term in meaningless to the child; and that the parents do not wish their instruction to be countermanded by an equally meaningless, but contrary, message heard in a classroom.
What I see here is coercion as much or more by the parents as anyone else, and what I don't see is any undermining of the truly important Constitutional principle that every individual should enjoy freedom of religion. |
