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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (52729)	7/8/2002 7:23:05 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I think it would be inappropriate to include relgious music at a federal government awards ceremony but I also think it would be inappropriate to make it a matter of a federal lawsuit. Exactly. I told them what I thought about the practice but would never have filed a lawsuit over it. It's way too trivial for that. But there was a principle at stake and I pointed that out to the appropriate people. I'm on record here as saying that I would not have filed a lawsuit over the Pledge, either, nor have I anything nice to say about the guy who die. But the matter is on the table now and we can't change that. I think a good deal of our difference here is simply the fact that I would not hold the majority to a higher standard simply because it is a majority. I understand that. I simply disagree. I've argued the point many times here under the labels of "noblesse oblige" and "magnanimity." I imagine I feel so strongly about that because I grew up in the conformist 50s and came of age during the civil rights movement and feminism and I know what it's like to be the underdog. It's in my bones and that's all there is to that. I don't particularly expect people with different experiences to relate to it. You did not grow up saying alien prayers in your classrooms. If the court had said that the state and public schools or school districts can not mandate the recital of the pledge with the word's "under god" I would have supported the decision, but I don't support the actual decision that was handed down by the court. It's already the law of the land that no one can be coerced into saying the Pledge with or without the phrase in question. The decision had nothing to do with that. The question is whether the practice in schools is coercive to little kids or not. I think it is. I would settle for leaving the Pledge alone if the schools that say it just make it clear that it OK not to conform to it.