Submitted by Peter Denison

The American Humanist Association is pushing its protest of the insertion of “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance.  The issue is already headed for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.  This is an issue which generates passions on both sides.  The Center for Humanist Activism writes:  “Early this year, 108 members of Congress sent a letter to NBC, stating their deep concern over the network omission of ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance twice in a video montage aired during coverage of the U. S. Open–as if that’s their top priority.  What’s worse is that the network caved to their demands and reprimanded the employees responsible.

Our Ethical Society needs more publicity to attract possible new members.  We should get involved in this issue.  Just supporting the issue in letters or news releases won’t do much for the cause or for publicity.  I suggest that we take direct action.  First, we can decide to begin each platform session with the Pledge using the original version which simply says “one nation indivisible,” at the same time getting the news out to local news sources.  We can also urge other humanist organizations to do the same.  Possibly we could get Unitarian-Universalist churches to follow suit, probably not in their worship services, but at their business meetings.  It would be wonderful to get a reporter to observe us on a Sunday and actually generate a news article.

Many humanists will at first be uneasy reciting the Pledge.  There are those who don’t like pledging to a flag, but the flag is just a symbol of the pledge we are really making.  A more serious objection is that our nation’s foreign policy is so hypocritical and self serving, and our domestic actions so anti-democratic, that having anything to do without flag is repellent.  I sympathize with that feeling, but I think it is mistaken.  Look at the actual words of the Pledge:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

This is really a humanistic statement.  We all want to see our country less divided and more unified.  We want a smaller gap between rich and poor.  We want fewer racial and ethnic antagonism.  We want to improve liberty for the average American, an area in which with more and more government surveillance we are moving backward.  We are all concerned about the lack of true justice in our present practice, and are trying to get true justice for the poor. the  weak, and members of unpopular groups.  We can truly say that the Pledge, properly understood, is a promise to do all we can to achieve these goals.

We don’t even have to put our emphasis on the issue of church and state.  Let people opposed to leaving out “under God” to scream about that issue.

We can elaborate on all the positive issues.  We bring the Pledge back to its original and more inclusive wording, thus using only the words which stress the unifying intent of the Pledge.  The Pledge is a promise for all of us to work for the goals of liberty and justice for all.  We invite both our supporters and antagonists to work for those goals with us.