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School vouchers vs. the Pledge of Allegiance

The Pledge of Allegiance has been a big topic of discussion in the blogosphere since the Supreme Court non-decision came out. And school vouchers are a topic which often brings up talk about the separation of church and state. This rant contains my opinions on both these matters.

School vouchers

Those opposed to school vouchers commonly complain that they violate the principle of separation of church and state.

In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925), the Supreme Court held that parents have a right to send their children to religious schools, and this is not a principle that has received much question since then.

Indeed, the free exercise of religion must allow parents the right to raise their children according to their own religious beliefs. We may not agree with their beliefs, but the very nature of a society that values the freedom of religion means that some people will have religious beliefs that you don’t hold yourself.

School vouchers enhance the free exercise of religion because it gives parents the economic ability to send their children to a religious school that they may otherwise have been unable to afford.

The argument that this creates an establishment of religion seems like nonsense to me. Parents are freely choosing where to send their children. The voucher really represents a return to the parents of the money they are saving the state by not sending their children to a public school. This is money that they have already paid, or will pay, in taxes during the course of their lives.

No one seems to have a problem when federal government loans and grants are given to students attending religious colleges, such as Georgetown University, so I fail to see any distinction between college aid and vouchers for the attendance of primary and secondary schools.

The Pledge of Allegiance

Because we don’t have a system of school vouchers, most parents are forced to send their children to public schools. They don’t have enough money to afford a private school and the law requires their children’s attendance.

At the public school, the child is forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, which contains the words “under God.” And let us not pretend that a young child really has any choice in the matter. Or that it’s a theoretical choice of silence that’s important, rather than the fact that the public school teacher, an authority figure who represents the state, is leading the class in reciting the pledge.

The pledge implies that to be a citizen loyal to the United States, you have to believe in God. This is the reason why “under God” was added to the Pledge in 1954, “to contrast [our] country’s belief in God with the Soviet Union’s embrace of atheism.” Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow (2004) (Rehnquist, C.J., concurring).

But this is wrong, the United States is not a country that believes in God, it’s a country that believes in the free exercise of religion. People are free to believe in God, and they are free to not believe in God. The Government is not allowed to officially state that atheism is inferior to belief in God.

Of course, in a country where 90% of the people are Christians who profess belief in God, one can’t expect to go through life without viewing other people’s affirmations of faith. Nor is it reasonable to expect that official government ceremonies will deny the importance of God in the lives of the majority of Americans. Thus the Supreme Court has carved out a reasonable exception for what Justice O’Connor calls “ceremonial deism.”

The Supreme Court previously concluded, in Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992), that a benediction given at a high school graduation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. And this is a decision that I find myself disagreeing with. There is a long tradition of benedictions being given at graduation ceremonies. I don’t see how it’s much different than the national funeral ceremony for Ronald Reagan in which various members of the clergy offered prayers. These ceremonies reflect the religious beliefs of the majority of their participants, unlike the Pledge where the purpose of “under God” is to identify the United States as nation that believes in God.

The Pledge of Allegiance interferes directly with people’s free exercise of religion. It is extremely offensive to a parent who is trying to raise his child to be a non-believer, to have his child recite the Pledge in school every single day. The child, after hundreds of recitations, will eventually get the idea that the school doesn’t agree with the beliefs that his parents are teaching him.

This is why the Pledge is different from other instances of ceremonial deism. I doubt that children spend much time reading the words on our currency, and after five minutes of watching Reagan’s funeral they were probably bored out of their minds. The high school graduation is a one time event that occurs when the child is old enough to know what’s going on.

The Pledge is different because it forces the young child, every day, to focus on the words that the Pledge contains. Pro “under God” people may say “but the words are meaningless to young children anyway.” Well, if the words are really meaningless, why bother to have children recite the Pledge at all? They could be doing something more useful instead. If the words are meaningless, why are they fighting so hard to have the words “under God” retained in the pledge? If the words are meaningless, the Supreme Court’s decision wouldn’t have been the number one news story two days ago.

Imagine how offended most Christians would be if their children were forced to recite a pledge that affirmed non-belief in God! It seems to me that pro “under God” people just don’t care about the rights of non-believers. They secretly hope that children of non-believing parents will come to see the True Path as a result of being forced to say “under God” everyday. And they don’t care how offensive it is to non-believers that the Pledge implies that one isn’t a true patriotic American unless one believes in God.

It is ironic indeed that a Pledge which proclaims this a country of liberty directly interferes with the liberty of parents to raise their children to not believe in God. The action required by Congress is simple. Remove “under God” from the Pledge so that the Pledge can revert to its original non-religious affirmation of patriotism.

posted Wednesday, June 16, 2004