I find it pretty interesting that Texas students will have four more words to remember when they return back to school this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance. In the Houston Chronicle, Legislature had just added the phrase "one state under God" to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge to the U.S. flag and a moment of silence. In the article Barry Lynn stated that, "Most Texans do not need to say this new version of the pledge in order to be either patriotic or religious," executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. "This is the kind of politicking of religion that disturbs many Americans, including those who are deeply religious."
I totally agree. While I don’t care that y’all put God in your Pledge, I DO care that, as reported, students are required "by law" say it....unless they get a note from home. Something about "Congress shall make no law...." comes to mind. For example, if public schools started making your child say "this country is under some deity you didn't believe in", would you object? (Assuming you have a child, of course.) I have older friends that lived in a generation where their public school homeroom class started each school day with a Bible reading. Usually the teacher let those students who wanted to do this pick out what they wanted to read and then read it out loud to the class. Then their homeroom teacher (and at least one other teacher) apparently found out that I they were not Christian. The homeroom teacher then assigned them to read from the Bible. They had a couple of minutes to pick something to read. They had to ask friends what to read. If that were to happen to me today, I would simply tell the teacher I didn't want to do it. There is a lot of peer pressure on a child to conform and not appear different. My friend survived this mild episode, of course, but having the teacher do this to them made it tougher on them to refuse at the time. The teacher was well intentioned, but her action simply steeled them against people who try to impose their beliefs on others.
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3 comments:
I see it, don't panic.
I really liked this post.
Here is my reply:
I feel that this law violates the Bill of Rights, because it takes away peoples Freedom of Religion, because if it is required by the law, it is infringing on peoples right to decide their belief in God or whomever deity they wish to believe in. There is no set of rules on how to be patriotic or how to show love for your state, I love everything about Texas, but that does not necessarily mean that I remember the pledge of allegiance. There are plenty of ways to show your patriotism especially in schools besides saying the pledge of allegiance and acknowledging that we are one state united under the banner of God. Some people may not believe that Texas is even united under God, let alone united at all. It is a very tribal attitude to think that something like a few sentences can conjure up so much emotion that it can unify such a large state. Perhaps if our legislature focused more on issues that directly affected peoples lives these kinds of laws would not even be an issue because everyone would be pleased with their lives in the state of Texas. With problems that are in some children's lives, I do not necessarily think that they even care about the four new words added to the Texas Pledge of Allegiance. Many young people in this state come from broken homes, deal with issues like poverty and violence, what kind of solace will they take in this new law?
Nice solid post. Good job.
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