in the news not related to katrina or SCOTUS —

Federal Judge Rules Pledge Unconstitutional — U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton says that the pledge’s reference to one nation “under God” violates school children’s right to be “free from a coercive requirement to affirm God.”

i disagree with this decision, but not for the reason you would think. my faith in God is important to me, and i don’t think encouraging kids to believe in God is wrong. that’s not what the pledge does. i believe the pledge has absolutely no effect on kids. perhaps you could burn the words into a kid’s head but at that point it’s just words.

saying the pledge sounds good, but what the kids are taught totally undermines its message. the values that the pledge promotes are short-circuited by schools that teach them how bad america is, how damaging religion is, and why we should be ashamed of being the world’s greatest country. that, my friends, is the danger to our children, not the pledge of allegiance.

the pledge of allegiance is irrelevant and meaningless under these conditions. for these reasons, i see no reason to regulate its use at all.

Technorati : lawrence karlton, pledge of allegiance