Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002
The Pledge of Allegiance Hoopla
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
I'm sure you are all aware of the tremendous hoopla going on about the 9th
Circuit Court ruling that government financed (public) schools can not
endorse the reading of the Pledge of Allegiance, as this act of endorsement
would violate the Constitution of the United States which forbids the
government from establishing or endorsing a religion. I agree with that
ruling, especially once I found out more about why the words "under God"
were added to the pledge, which was a governmentally endorsed means of
differentiating America from the god-less communists during the 1950's (see
the Neal Boortz link below).
Of all the talk show hosts I listen to or are aware of, only two of about
ten correctly understood that the 9th Circuit Court was not denying
Christians anything, but was rather following their Constitutional mandate
and upholding the rights of the individual over the contrary will of the
majority. (I'm assuming Andrew Lewis will be number three who agrees with
the Court, but his show doesn't come on until Sunday).
Of course, there shouldn't be schools financed by the government at all in
the first place as this leads to governmental indoctrination, but that
battle will have to wait for another day.
Those two radio talk show hosts are Neal Boortz (Atlanta) and Mark Davis
(Dallas). Both gave a very rational presentation of the ruling and what it
meant and what it did not mean. I congratulate both of them (even though
Boortz was a bit flippant about the Court).
To read a transcript of Neal Boortz's radio presentation, which contains
background information, see the following link:
www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/27/131541.shtml
Unfortunately, it doesn't look like WBAP (Mark Davis) has an archive of the
show, but his comments definitely goes to show that one can not lump all
religious Conservative talk show hosts together.
I should also say that I was very disappointed that Rush Limbaugh and
Michael Savage were against the ruling, since they claimed that the ruling
was an attack on religion as such (which is wasn't) and that it was those
atheists forcing their views "on the rest of us" (which it wasn't).
The ruling has already been stayed by the judge who ruled it, which means
he's giving in to the consensus of the majority rather than sticking to a
principled ruling.
