Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

This is less about the Pledge itself than about God in a public classroom, so here goes:

Regardless of what the Supremes have said, organized prayer did and does go on in the public schools of this country. It went on when I was a child and teenager, in the late 1970s and 1980s, to the point where first-hour teachers assigned students to prepare the daily Bible quotations to be read after announcements.

By the time I was in high school, I was in band, and I didn't have to put up with the prayers - yes, 'put up with' is the correct phrase - because I was either outside on the field or we were just playing right through them, because band was always first hour. It didn't matter much; the damage to me had been done when I was in elementary school.

In grade school, every day after we said the Pledge of Allegiance we had to stay standing and recite the Lord's Prayer. I was just an eight-year-old little girl - I didn't know it was illegal and that I didn't really have to do it. I did know that if I wasn't doing exactly what all the other kids were doing, I would be the 'different kid.' Therein lies the problem and the source of much anger and sadness for me as a child.

I am Presbyterian, and I learned the Lord's Prayer by age four, and I was proud I could recite it. One line of the Prayer, as I learned it, is:

...and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Most of the kids in my town, and therefore in my classes, were Baptist, and they said this particular line of the prayer like this:

...and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Note that the way I learned it is shorter. This means I finished the lines sooner, and I also was saying different words than the others. But we were just little kids, right? Kids don't notice that kind of stuff. They didn't care if I said something different - did they? After all, everybody's Christian, right?

You bet your ass they noticed. And I was singled out, taunted, asked why I didn't say it the right way, and told that I really didn't believe in God because I wasn't saying the prayer their way. Whole groups of kids threatened to beat me up, and some of them said things that I can't bring myself to type thirty years later. I finally gave in, and I changed my words from what my parents had taught me to what the other kids told me I should say.

Is that what school prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance are all about - to intimidate frightened children into conforming because they're afraid of being harmed if they insist on doing what their own parents taught them? Yes. It is. It's about forcing a government religion onto every child.

You see, this prayer issue does matter. Anything that singles a child out from his or her peers is noticed by every one of those kids, and that notice affects the rest of their lives. Those people who claim to want 'prayer in schools' don't want just any prayer - they want Christian prayer to their God, because that rote recitation firmly establishes them in control of religious discussion by children, and thereby singles out all those children who are different. And these are the same folks who want 'under God' kept in the Pledge because they seem to think those words were part of the original work. The phrase wasn't even added to the Pledge until 1954, so it's not exactly a tradition that dates back to Columbus.

I don't care what you do or don't believe about God, or the Goddess, or Allah, or Yahweh, or whatever. I care that you treat others right, that you live your life in such a manner that it doesn't endanger me or my family, and that you allow me and my family to live with you or without you as we see fit. The 'under-Godders' aren't evangelical Christians. They're evangelical busybodies, and they want to force all of us to do the exact opposite of what they want for themselves, which is freedom to worship however and whenever the mood strikes.

It's a free country. If I send my children to a public school, they shouldn't have to listen to anything about anyone's God during school hours. That's my job - not a teacher's job. What I said about living with or without them as I see fit? Without is just fine.