A federal appeals court rejected requests from the Bushadministration Friday to review a decision that declared the Pledgeof Allegiance unconstitutional because of the phrase “underGod.”
Last summer, the original decision stirred up a heated debateacross a country coming down off of a post-Sept. 11 patriotic high.Now that the threat of war with Iraq looms and political punditsare hurling criticism of the administration’s policies, thisappeals court’s decision comes at an appropriate time to revisitthe original decision.
People who protested the decision argued that our nation wasfounded “under God” with the first European religious exiles wholanded on our shores. But supporters of Sacramento atheist MichaelNewdow’s case argue that when Baptist minister Francis Bellamywrote the original pledge in 1892, the words “under God” were notincluded. They were added during the redbaiting days of theEisenhower administration to mark our nation as different from our”Godless” communist Cold War enemies.
Today, we face a similar existential moment in history. AfterWorld War II, it fell to Eisenhower to lead the charge in shaping anew America. With Europe in rubble and the rise of Russian andAsian global power, the Eisenhower administration set its country’spost-war agenda.
By adding “under God” to the pledge, the administration made adefinitive statement on who Americans were and what theybelieved.
The Bush administration has taken on a similar role in definingour country in the year after Sept. 11. We face many of the samechallenges as Americans of the 1950s. Our country’s xenophobicleanings threaten to label Americans of Middle Eastern descent asterrorist, just as hundreds were called out as Communists duringthe 1950s witch hunts led by Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
But we have a chance to make a different decision.
As we once again question the moral and philosophical tenor ofour nation, the “under God” decision will speak volumes regardingthe philosophical direction of our nation in the post-Sept. 11world.
This debate is more than inconsequential huff-and-puff forafternoon radio talk show hosts. Friday’s decision makes a symbolicstatement towards defining our country as tolerant of those withdifferent beliefs in a time when we have every right to besuspicious.
Like the Americans of the 1950s, we face an opportunity tosymbolically embrace diversity or turn our backs. Unlike theAmericans of a generation ago, let’s back the right decision.
