Bellamy said he heard the pledge for the first time that day, October 21, when "4, high school boys in Boston roared it out together. But no sooner had the pledge taken root in schools than the fiddling with it began. In , a National Flag Conference, presided over by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution, ordained that "my flag" should be changed to "the flag of the United States," lest immigrant children be unclear just which flag they were saluting.
The following year, the Flag Conference refined the phrase further, adding "of America. In , the pledge's 50th anniversary, Congress adopted it as part of a national flag code. By then, the salute had already acquired a powerful institutional role, with some state legislatures obligating public school students to recite it each school day.
But individuals and groups challenged the laws. Notably, Jehovah's Witnesses maintained that reciting the pledge violated their prohibition against venerating a graven image. In , the Supreme Court ruled in the Witnesses' favor, undergirding the free-speech principle that no schoolchild should be compelled to recite the pledge. A decade later, following a lobbying campaign by the Knights of Columbus—a Catholic fraternal organization—and others, Congress approved the addition of the words "under God" within the phrase "one nation indivisible.
The bill's sponsors, anticipating that the reference to God would be challenged as a breach of the Constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, had argued that the new language wasn't really religious. The case originated when Michael Newdow, an atheist, claimed that his daughter a minor whose name has not been released was harmed by reciting the pledge at her public school in Elk Grove, California.
If she refused to join in because of the "under God" phrase, the suit argued, she was liable to be branded an outsider and thereby harmed. The appellate court agreed.
Complicating the picture, the girl's mother, who has custody of the child, has said she does not oppose her daughter's reciting the pledge; the youngster does so every school day along with her classmates, according to the superintendent of the school district where the child is enrolled.
Proponents of the idea that the pledge's mention of God reflects historical tradition and not religious doctrine include Supreme Court justices past and present. Atheists are not the only ones to take issue with that line of thought. Advocates of religious tolerance point out that the reference to a single deity might not sit well with followers of some established religions.
Bowman continued to deliver his version of the Pledge, and others, like the Knights of Columbus, began reciting it, too. Various people even wrote letters to the president at the time, Harry Truman, and met with him to request the more religious tone. Finally, the government became involved. In , Louis Rabaut , a democrat from Michigan sponsored a resolution to add the words "under God" to the Pledge. It failed. But by then, the decision was up to President Dwight D.
Recently baptized as a Presbyterian, he heard a sermon, arguing the words "under God" from Lincoln's speech set the United States apart from others as a nation. At the time, the Cold War was gaining steam, and Eisenhower was fighting communism across the globe. The next day, the president encouraged Charles Oakman , a republican also from Michigan , to re-introduce the bill, which Congress passed.
Eisenhower signed it into law on June 14, A story announcing the news in the Washington Post quoted him as saying the new version would add "spiritual weapons which will forever be our country's most powerful resource.
Naturally, in a nation with growing diversity of religions, "under God" has proven a polarizing phrase. Separation of church and state also factors into the politicized discussion. Over the following decades, there have been legal challenges concerning the use of those two words in the Pledge. Two recent legal challenges also targeted state constitutions, and not the U. In , the Massachusetts case Jane Doe v. Acton-Boxborough Regional School District involved a group of parents, teachers and the American Humanist Association in an action against a school district.
In February , a judge ruled in favor of the school district.
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