Posted: 10/30/07

October  2007

Kerby Anderson

            "I pledge allegiance to the flag and my constitutional rights with which it comes. And to the diversity, in which our nation stands, one nation, part of one planet, with liberty, freedom, choice and justice for all."

            If that doesn't exactly sound like the pledge of allegiance, you would be correct. But that is the pledge that some students are saying at Boulder High School. More than four dozen students have been participating in a "pledge protest" in the school courtyard.

            The protest is motivated by many reasons but the principle criticism from the students is that the current pledge of allegiance violates the so-called "separation of church and state." Of course, we have heard that argument before from atheist Michael Newdow and the judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

            The protest coincides with the time allowed by the school for the students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance if they want. The protesting students want the recitation to be during lunch so that people who don't want to participate "won't have to hear it." They plan to hold the protest every week unless the school policy is changed. They believe that saying the pledge is a form of religion oppression.

            Well, isn't it amazing how far we have come in fifty years? Back in 1954, Congress added the words "under God" to the pledge in order to acknowledge God's providence and protection of the United States of America. Back then, the addition was welcomed and hardly considered something controversial. After all Abraham Lincoln used the phrase in the Gettysburg Address. Fast forward to today and students not only want to remove any mention of God, but they want to fill the pledge with words like "diversity" and "choice."

            It might be easy to write off these high school students and see this as merely an immature teenage protest. But in many ways, their new pledge says more about America than many of us would like to admit. I'm Kerby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

By Kerby Anderson Click here for bio and archived articles