measi's Diaryland Diary

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How to untangle the religious from the patriotic

A beautifully written essay posted in the San Francisco Chronicle today... it expresses everything I feel I would need to say and more.

How to untangle the religious from the patriotic

Ayesha N. Khan, Wednesday, March 24, 2004

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My parents arrived here from India in one of the waves of immigration that have brought millions of families to the United States during the past 300 years. These immigrant families want to be able to express their gratitude and loyalty to the country that has taken them in. But the assertion in the Pledge of Allegiance that this is a nation "under God" prevents many immigrants outside the Judeo-Christian tradition from participating in this fundamental ritual of American patriotism.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether the words "under God" must be omitted from the recitation of the pledge in public schools. As a legal matter, the required outcome is plain: A principled application of constitutional law calls for the words to be stricken. As a political matter, however, the case is more complex: It pairs patriotism with religious faith, matters that inflame passions when they arise in isolation and are downright incendiary when they coalesce. But it is precisely because the pledge pairs religion and politics that the phrase must be removed.

A federal appeals court in California found the words "under God" unconstitutional, at least insofar as they are used in public schools. As a matter of law, this conclusion was far from groundbreaking. The framers of the Constitution believed that government should not endorse religion in general or any religion in particular, and that this is necessary to ensure that religion flourishes and the American experiment is realized. As a result of the framers' good judgment, the United States is among the most deeply religious countries of the world.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has rightly concluded that organized public school events are inherently coercive and that it is unrealistic to think that children -- some as young as 5 years old -- will be comfortable opting out of such activities. That is all the more true when a patriotic exercise is involved. The pledge, as written, places polytheistic and nontheistic children between a rock and a hard place: They can betray their religion or conscience, or they can appear unpatriotic. That is not a real choice.

Despite all of this, the appeals court's decision led to a national outcry. Politicians lined up to ridicule the ruling, to announce their intent to defy it and to predict its quick demise in the Supreme Court. Americans throughout the country expressed the view that the decision represents hostility toward religion and religious people. Michael Newdow, the Sacramento man who filed the case, became the object of countless harassing and threatening telephone calls.

Newdow's experience mirrors that of Lillian Gobitis, a seventh-grader who, in 1935, sought to remain true to her Jehovah's Witness teachings by opting out of the recitation of the pledge. It had not yet been amended to include the words "under God" -- that occurred in 1954 at the height of the McCarthy era, when many Americans were keen to distinguish themselves from "godless Communists" -- but Gobitis' religious motivation for objection was perceived as unpatriotic by her fellow students, who subjected her to verbal harassment and physical attacks. School officials were equally intolerant of her perspective; they expelled her for "insubordination." Lillian challenged her expulsion but ultimately lost before the Supreme Court, which was swayed by the politics of the impending war. The court's 1940 ruling led to waves of persecution against Jehovah's Witnesses at the hands of those emboldened by the decision's affirmation of anti-minority sentiments.

But the high court got it wrong in the Gobitis case, and it did so for all the wrong reasons. If the federal courts cannot be counted on to rest their rulings on principle -- rather than politics -- they add nothing to our constitutional order that is not already provided by the representative branches of government. Even more important, the Supreme Court's ruling in the Gobitis case betrayed the very purpose of the Bill of Rights, which is to protect religious and other minorities from the political predilections of the majority.

In recognition of its error, the Supreme Court corrected itself three years later. In West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette, the court upheld the right of Jehovah's Witness students to abstain from reciting the pledge, eloquently explaining that "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion." In overruling its previous decision, the court recognized that the "case is made difficult not because the principles of its decision are obscure but because the flag involved is our own."

Yet again, history repeats itself. But this time, let's get it right -- the first time. In so doing, we would be recognizing a new patriotism, one that allows all Americans to fully express their love for this great country.

~ Ayesha N. Khan is legal director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State in Washington.

11:35 a.m. - 24 March 2004

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