One woman's view: Congress cannot legislate piety
Contributing writer
Sometimes I wonder if my main function in life is to be a devil's advocate. With that understood, you can probably guess where I stand in the recent controversy about the pledge of allegiance to the flag.
Perhaps the atheist who went to court to banish the phrase "under God" from the flag salute was fighting over something not very important. Nevertheless, I am surprised somebody did not challenge it long ago. Certainly those who are up in arms about the court ruling that the phrase violates the First Amendment are also fighting over something not very important. Does anybody believe that an atheist or agnostic reciting those words under pressure will become a Christian? I don't think so.
Many people talk as if they think the Pledge of Allegiance and the motto "In God We Trust" on our currency were ordained from the birth of our republic. In fact, the flag salute first appeared in a magazine titled Youth's Companion in 1892. Soon it was being used frequently in public meetings and some classrooms. When the American Legion and other patriotic organizations held a meeting in 1923 to adopt a code of etiquette for respect to the flag, the pledge was included in that code. About that time the phrase "my flag" was replaced with "the flag of the United States of America." The phrase "under God" was added by an act of Congress only in 1954.
The Pledge of Allegiance had no formal recognition until nearly a century and a half after our nation was founded, and the phrase "under God" was added even later. Everybody my age or older went through school reciting it with no nod to the Deity. Were we any less religious or patriotic than the school children of today?
I have heard people shocked by the possible deletion of the phrase comment that we might as well remove "In God We Trust" from our money, as if that would be unheard of. Although that practice has a slightly longer history than the pledge, it too is much younger than our country. The Coinage Act which authorized that motto was passed in 1864, so it is a bit ridiculous to attribute either the motto or the pledge to our founding fathers. Although I cannot prove it, my hunch is that if Congress had passed them under the regime of Jefferson or Madison, they would have been vetoed.
The extent to which government should be involved in religious issues and practices has been controversial from our nation's beginnings. During the debate on ratification of the Constitution in New Hampshire, one spokesman opposed it on the ground that "a Turk, a Jew, a Roman Catholic, and what is worse than all, a Universalist, may be President of the United States." Whenever a court rules that some government intrusion into religion violates the First Amendment, many of my fundamentalist friends insist this was not what our founding fathers intended. I think they need to study a little history to determine what these august leaders did intend, although, of course, there were no doubt differences among them.
To give some idea of their views I quote James Madison, the principle writer of the Constitution, on the subject of chaplains in Congress (as quoted by Edwin Gaustad in Faith of our Fathers):
"The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles. The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship ag[ain]st the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."
When I asked a Christian friend how he would feel about having the phrase "under Allah" in the flag salute, he thought that would be completely different, because the majority of people in this country worship the Christian God and not the Allah of Islam. How do you think Madison would have responded to that?
Although I am not sure using the phrase "under God" when we saluted the flag ever hurt any of us much, I do agree with the California judge that it is a violation of the First Amendment. It is a question of authority. If Congress had the authority under the Constitution to add the phrase "under God," then they have the authority (if they should so chose) to change it to "under Allah," "under Zoroaster," or for that matter "under the Great Pumpkin."
Of course, they are unlikely to do so as long as Christians are in the majority, but the First Amendment was not added to the Constitution to protect the religious freedom of the majority. That was always safe in the established religions of earlier governments. The purpose is to protect the religious freedom of all citizens, no matter how small the minority to which they belong.
I also wonder what my irate friends think is accomplished by reciting that two-word phrase or what is threatened by its omission. Do they believe that every American who mouths those words achieves some sort of religious merit, which we would lose if they were omitted? Sometimes courts have ruled that similar practices did not violate the separation of church and state because their constant repetition had robbed them of any real religious significance. If that is true, then do they honor God or devalue Him?
Frankly, my religious faith is not so weak-kneed that it must be shored up by government sanction, nor is it threatened by another person's rejection of it. In fact, Congress cannot legislate piety. Before the phrase "under God" was added to the pledge, I knew God was ruler of the universe. If that phrase is removed, I will still know it. Therefore, the current controversy becomes a rather trivial non-issue.
