Save the Pledge of Allegiance

[mad1]

wepledge

"A Petition Supporting a Constitutional Amendment to Protect the Pledge of Allegiance and Our National Motto
This proposed Constitutional Amendment will protect our Pledge of Allegiance
with the words "under God," and our national motto "In God We Trust," and
will prohibit judges from declaring them illegal."

[M_Six]

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

That includes Constitutional Amendments. I don't understand why that's so difficult for some people to grasp.

[daveleau]

Saying "Under God" is not establishing a religion and people are only using this argument because they don't like religion. No one is forcing anyone to say anything, so why don't people abstain from that part of the pledge and leave well enough alone? Simple solution! Creating the Anglican church as a tax redeeming body as was done in the early 1700s is what our nation feared. Britain used the Anglican church to control the colonies. The last time I read it it was not in the Constitution that we should have separation of church and state. I'm not sure why people try to mutilate our founding document or our history to make it seem like it is so.

[M_Six]

No one is "mutilating" anything. The idea of the 1st Amendment equating to a separation of church and state is a valid, long-standing interpretation made by and still supported by the highest court in this country. And an "establishment of religion" can also mean "a religion", as an "establishment of commerce" would be "a store" or "a business". Congress shall pass no law respecting (having to do with, affecting, or praising/damning) an "establishment of religion". See the way things can be interpreted differently?

You could use your argument to support an amendment making "Under Allah" a part of the Pledge, too. Or "Allahu Akbar" as our national motto.

The point of the 1st amendment was to remove religious influence on the creation of law in the US. Laws were to be written in accordance with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, not the Bible.

[Theophylact]

Oh, spare us yet another stupid special-pleading Constitutional Amendment (flag-burning, school prayer, gay marriage). Amending the Bill of Rights is a bad idea.

[jon112981]

Okay first... "the in god we trust" is not really a nation's motto. It's something on money that NEEDS to be there, from an economic standpoint. My econ professor was discussing this with me. It indicates that our money is backed by no assets(gold, silver, property etc.). If you look back at say the silver backed dollars they DO NOT say "In God we Trust". VERY important distinction. As for the "one nation under god" it doesn't make a difference anyway because well no one pays attention to it except people who want to start some kind of ruckuss.

And by the way, the consitution and even the bill of rights can be changed by ANY ammendment. However it would have to totally nullify the ammendment or section, which is why they are so damn hard to pass. Congress COULD write an ammendment saying that ammendments 1 through 10 are now null and void. I can only imagine what people's reactions to this would be and the riots we'd have but it is POSSIBLE. Okay I'm not a poli sci major so someone correct me if I'm wrong on that because it was a bold statement but that is what I understood from Junior year US history.

[M_Six]

Okay first... "the in god we trust" is not really a nation's motto. It's something on money that NEEDS to be there, from an economic standpoint. My econ professor was discussing this with me. It indicates that our money is backed by no assets(gold, silver, property etc.).

Wrong on both counts according to the US Treasury.

[Siliconjunkie]

I am going to side with M_Six on this simply because the 2 statements are biased towards our "mainstream" religions.

[Prexaspes]

Hmm, an establishment of religion would be a church, or a denomination by your reasoning, M6. Not a religion. And since when does the general term God necessarily mean Jehovah? It could mean Allah, Vishnu, Brahmah, Thor, or whoever... It's a matter of personal interpretation. What does everyone have against Christianity, anyhow?

In my opinion, there is no reason for this to be made an ammendment.

The first section of this proposed ammendment is already covered by the freedom of speech. The second one declares our national motto to be "in God We Trust." Other than that, it is still just freedom of speech.

Or does freedom of speech not extend to our government which is of the people, for the people, and by the people?

[Telexen]

Establishing a religion does not mean establishing a church. There are religions who don't believe in God, it IS unconstitutional.

Lets just get rid of the whole Pledge of Alligience. The only ones who say it are school kids, and they don't really even care. They only do it because teacher make them (and that IS the truth)