{"id":60,"date":"2002-06-27T11:18:44","date_gmt":"2002-06-27T15:18:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/randthought.com\/wp\/?p=60"},"modified":"2002-06-27T11:18:44","modified_gmt":"2002-06-27T15:18:44","slug":"a-question-of-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/2002\/06\/27\/a-question-of-beliefs\/","title":{"rendered":"A Question of Beliefs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My mother called me yesterday and said, “get on your website and start writing about the Pledge of Allegiance, and make sure you tell that man in California to give away all of his money because it has “In God We Trust On It'”. Before I could even address her frantic plea, I hear a pounding on my door. I told my mom to hold on, I had to go and see what was going on outside. To my surprise, it was Kristen Anderson from “news that’s more local;” she and her cameraman saw my flags and God Bless America sign in front of my house and thought I would be the perfect person to interview<\/a> about the 9th District Federal Court of Appeals ruling<\/a> the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. Thus began my one and only chance to lead off the news<\/a>. I was stunned to be sought out for my opinion, but pleased to offer it. Now, I will post the unabridged version of my opinion here for the curious (and yes, for my mother as well).<\/p>\n

The Pledge of Allegiance<\/a> is unconstitutional? Aren’t we at war, aren’t we in a recession, aren’t people trying to kill us? With all our country has been through in the last 200 years, more specifically in the last 9 months, don’t we have more important things to worry about? I am sorry Mr. Newdow’s second grade daughter was injured<\/a> by her classmates recitations of the Pledge (he does not allege that his daughter’s teacher or school district requires his daughter to participate in reciting the Pledge, rather, he claims that his daughter is injured when she is compelled to “watch and listen as her stateemployed teacher in her state-run school leads her classmates in a ritual proclaiming that there is a God, and that our’s [sic] is ‘one nation under God.’ ”), but you can not remove all references to God from our country just so she is never affected. God is specifically referred to in our Declaration of Independence, it is a part of many of our State mottos and seals, most notably, it is on every piece of currency we spend. Even if you could wipe away all of those references, his daughter will still have to at least acknowledge the concept of God exists in our culture. God is in our dictionary; our country’s landscape is dotted with churches, mosques, and synagogues; people preach the gospel on street corners; even the non-religious study the Bible for its historical signifigance. God is an unavoidable part of our culture; it makes no difference whether you believe in one or not. I don’t believe Mr. Newdow or his daughter should have to worship any God or even have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance if they don’t want to, that is their right as Americans (and a big part of what makes this country great), but what I do believe is The Pledge of Allegiance is not about God, it is about country<\/b>. It is about honor and respect for our nation and the freedoms we are so fortunate to have been given by the countless numbers of Americans who have sacrificed their lives to defend our country and these same freedoms we hold so dear. <\/p>\n

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation UNDER GOD, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My mother called me yesterday and said, “get on your website and start writing about the Pledge of Allegiance, and make sure you tell that man in California to give away all of his money because it has “In God We Trust On It’”. Before I could even address her frantic plea, I hear a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randthought.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}