Pledging Allegiance To Fundamentalism

A Christian socialist who turned his back on religion. That's the guy whose handiwork politicians of both parties and religious right leaders rushed to defend this past week.

Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister in upstate New York who sermonized against the materialism of the Gilded Age and who resigned from his church after businessmen cut off funding because of his socialist activities and lectures, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. Now his words, composed for a magazine-sponsored school program celebrating the quadricentennial of Columbus Day, are treated as a sacred writ. Holy irony!

When a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (based in where else but San Francisco) ruled 2-1 that the pledge is unconstitutional and cannot be recited in public schools because of the "under God" phrase, no microphone on Capitol Hill was safe. Senators and House members scampered before television cameras to denounce this decision. Senator Hillary Clinton said she was "offended by the decision." House majority leader Dick Armey called it "one of the most asinine things I ever heard." Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle declared it "nuts." He immediately orchestrated a 99-0 vote in the Senate condemning the decision. A hundred or so House members, led by House Speaker Denny Hastert and House majority whip Tom DeLay, put aside such pressing business as raising the debt ceiling (so the United States does not default), overseeing the war on terrorism, crafting the new department for homeland security and developing legislation for a prescription drug benefit to hit the steps of the Capitol and recite the pledge and sing "God Bless America." From the G8 summit in Canada, George W. Bush bashed the decision as "ridiculous." Politicians moved to gain political advantage. In Montana, the Republican Senate nominee, Mike Taylor, attacked the Democratic incumbent, Max Baucus, for having once voted against splitting the 9th Circuit Court into two districts. Senate minority leader Trent Lott blamed Democrats for not acting quickly enough on Bush's judicial appointments. And all this was before the gabbers of cable-newsland could sink their teeth into the story.

Are the politicians and politicos capable of not overreacting to this type of news? (After all, almost every legal expert agrees the decision is likely to be overturned.) Of course not.

On CNN's "Connie Chung Tonight," the eponymous host grilled Michael Newdow, the California parent (or, as The Washington Post called him, "the Sacramento atheists") who brought this case -- and argued it himself -- because he did not want his daughter to be confronted in her second-grade class each day by a ritual proclaiming there is a God. (The California education code requires public schools to begin the day with an "appropriate patriotic exercise," and reciting the pledge qualifies as such.) Rather than delve into the meaty legal issues of the case -- Is the pledge an endorsement of God? Is asking a child to say the pledge actually a request the kid affirm monotheism? -- Chung inquired of Newdow, "Are you proud to be American?" And, "Are you prepared ... [to be] the most hated man in America?" Newdow argued that he was fighting for the Constitution. To which Chung replied, "The whole Pledge of Allegiance has to do with being patriotic and supporting America and supporting the flag." Was she not listening? Newdow's objection was to the "under God" portion of the pledge, not the pledge itself. Chung also suggested Newdow's pursuit of this case "is far more damaging to" his daughter than having her feel like "an outsider" when the pledge is spoken in her classroom.

The response to the court's decision exposed the fundamentalism that weaves through American public life, where many, a la Chung, confuse the worship of God with patriotism. If only "Hardball" could book Francis Bellamy today. His version of the pledge did not contain a reference to God. Those two words were added in 1954, when Congress, reacting to a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, inserted those two words and turned the pledge into a public prayer of sorts. (The point was to contrast the godly United States of America with the godless Soviet Union.) So the pledge had worked just fine for 62 years without bringing the Big One into the picture. And according to a history of the pledge written by John Baer, Bellamy's granddaughter has maintained that Bellamy, who died in 1931, would have resented the alteration. He had, she noted, been forced out of his own church and in his later years, when he lived in Florida, stopped attending services because he was put off by segregation in churches. (Back in 1892, Bellamy had considered adding "equality" to the "liberty and justice for all" phrase, but he realized that would draw objections from people opposed to equality for women and African-Americans.)