Barack Obama prays
Photo: Alex Wong / Getty Images
If you signed the White House petition calling for the removal for "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance you might have received their official response by now. That it was written by Joshua DuBois, Executive Director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, should tell you right away what sort of responses it is and what the Obama administration thinks about the issue.
However, you probably guessed well in advance what sort of response they were likely to send, didn't you?
When he was a Senator from Illinois, President Obama gave a keynote address at the Call to Renewal conference where he spoke about the important role religion plays in politics and in public life.
A sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. That's why President Obama supports the use of the words "under God" in our Pledge of Allegiance and "In God we Trust" on our currency.
These phrases represent the important role religion plays in American public life, while we continue to recognize and protect the rights of secular Americans. As the President said in his inaugural address, "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers." We're proud of that heritage, and the strength it brings to our great country.
Source: Reddit
It's true that not every mention of God in public is a breach of the wall of separation. Mentions that come from private individuals are almost 100% legal. Mentions from officers of the state, acting in their official capacity, are much less likely to be legal. Official promotion of God in official documents, oaths, and laws, are almost very unlikely to be legal. Which of these categories do you suppose the inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance falls?
It's also true that context matters. Personal comments, even from officers of the state, are not usually worth pursuing legal cases over. Official government actions which impact everyone in the nation, in contrast, often are worth pursuing legal cases over. Once again, which of these categories do you think "under God" falls into?
It's noteworthy that Joshua DuBois doesn't actually offer anything like a legal argument for supporting "under God" and opposing the petition. He doesn't even really give a philosophical argument. At most he references a couple of arguments, but he doesn't make them. Why? Well, that would require sticking his neck out by defending a substantive position and that, in turn, would make him vulnerable once all the flaws in his arguments are pointed out.
The simple fact of the matter is, the current form of the Pledge of Allegiance tells everyone, but especially young people, that the government of the United States considers America to be a nation with a particular relationship with a particular deity -- specifically, the god of traditional western Christianity. The current form of the Pledge tells people that Christianity is favored and privileged; this comes with the implication that non-Christians generally and atheists in particular are disfavored.
The inclusion of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance can be no more defended than "under Jesus" or referring to America as "One White Nation." That's why people like Joshua DuBois don't really try to defend it, they just dismiss critics with vague references to "context" and the "role religion plays in America."
People like Joshua DuBois and Barack Obama don't have a legal or even a philosophical case, they just have a personal, emotional commitment to the status quo -- a status quo in which their own religious ideology is privileged. They might even recognize this on some level, but are too much intellectual and moral cowards to directly face their privileges and do something about it.
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