If you don’t think that for a young kid, social pressures to conform don’t equate to being ‘forced’ to follow the crowd, I think you’re mistaken. I abstained from the Pledge when I was a kid, and don’t you bet that it didn’t make me popular!

Last time I checked, no one had a general First Amendment “right” to be popular or free of social pressures, which is why I find it rather odd anyone asserts such a right in this context. And contrary to Newdow revisionism, the version of the Pledge you call the “original” one, isn’t, having been written in 1924 and not adopted by Congress until 1942, a whopping 12 years before today’s version was enacted. By now, the current version of the Pledge has been around for 51 years, a lot longer than either of the two versions that preceded it, slightly longer than both of them combined, and considerably longer than the Ten Commandments display that the Supreme Court just upheld in part because it was so old.

I actually agree with you that the Pledge probably would be better without the reference to God, but this is for Congress to decide, not the courts. And it certainly should not be left to a pinhead judge who is too dumb to understand that he’s not bound by the precedent of a case that has been overruled.

California Conservative has lots of links regarding today’s ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional. You can read the opinion here.

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A child that is taught to say the pledge of allegiance is not exactly a rational adult making an informed decision - so reciting the pledge does seem mandatory and unavoidable in class. So, California Conservative, I think you are wrong.

I don’t think that anyone is going to convert to a Christian faith just because they said the pledge of allegiance with “under God” in it. Yet pledging, or deciding not to pledge, allegiance under a God that one does not believe in is a bit unfair, isn’t it?

I really think that this issue, and other so-called “religious rights” issues, are brought up to re-enable a more traditional role for Christian institutions in this country.

This is a wedge issue, brought up to divide religious left-wingers from those who oppose this traditional situation. Whether or not someone says “under God” is a technicality that really affects no one, but is made to be symbol of one side’s craven desires. It’s simlar to the whole flag burning issue, with a whole layer of religious overtones attached to it.

The power of this issue to make religion seem so important is great for churches - all of a sudden they are important again! There are more people in church these days than any time during the 20th century. These institutions are moving to regain the power that religious institutions typically have had to dictate social norms and sexual behavior. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want someone in a funny hat or strange clothes telling me who I can or can’t marry - unless I ask for their opinion first.

The headlines frame it in the Right’s preferred language: Judge: School Pledge Is Unconstitutional and Judge rules Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional and Federal judge declares Pledge unconstitutional and Judge: School Pledge Is Unconstitutional. T…

Currently, government has nothing to do with the matter. There’s no program or subsidy promoting the pledge. For the last 50 years, quite simply, many schools (not all) have been leading their students with the pledge of allegiance because it is tradition - and what is a nation without traditions. Each student retains the right (and freedom) to say “under God” or not. No force applied.

However, by way of this ruling, government is, indeed, forcing schools (teachers) not to recite the pledge. Government is forcing school children never to know the pledge. And forcing parents to conform.

By making laws that dictate social practices (either by allowing OR forbidding), government is imposing behavior. Don’t you see that?

Thanks for reading.

This is about big government forcing people to think a certain way, vs. liberty and freedom from governmentally imposed behaviour.

Law 101: The Supreme Court trumps the Ninth Circuit every time.

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…I’ll say it again. If you can’t afford private schools, HOMESCHOOL YOUR CHILDREN!
Why fight for the right to recite the pledge in government schools when those same schools teach that perversion is normal, America is racist, and W…

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.

http://jcb.pentex-net.com/archives/2005/09/the_unconstitut.html

A federal judge, with a long history (see last paragraph) of liberal activism, has ruled that the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional:Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was declared unconstitutiona…

I feel that this argument about the pledge of allegiance/abortion/everything has more to do with people’s desire to have the power to exert moral control over other people’s lives - and has little to do with any specific belief in a god.

The way I see it, the authority various churches traditionally have had over citizen’s lives were for a time drastically reduced due to massive demographic and economic shifts in the U.S. following World War II. Mega-churches, and televangelism, have bridged the gap that our sprawled-out suburban lifestyles have created - and so religious people are trying to re-claim their place as arbiters of morality.

A lot of people have always resented the power that Christian moral rules have imposed on their lifestyle. The rhetoric of people who want kids doing the pledge has little to do with actually saying the pledge - but, to me, has more to do with the fact that they can make us say anything at all for religious reasons.

I would suggest that people pick their fights. There is a place for religion in modern, secular, life.

It will either be a place based on religious-fascist political ideology, or one that honestly allows for public acknowledgement of religious ideas without persecuting people who don’t believe in whatever given faith happens to be testifying to its own greatness.

Hat tip to California Conservative
Judge Declares Pledge Unconstitutional
The Pledge of Allegiance was ruled unconstitutional Wednesday by a federal judge who granted legal standing to two families represented by an atheist whose previous attempt to…

Nominated by Jimmy Carter, go figure.