I can remember way back to the first grade (Miss Morgan), and saying the Pledge, singing "My Country 'Tis Of Thee and Miss Morgan reading from a black covered bible at the beginning of every day.
I was born in 1948 so this would have been in 1953 or there-abouts.
I remember the Pledge all through my school years until 1965 when I enlisted in the Army.
I have never in my life ( even during my post military, quasi radically political daze (no typo) of the late sixties and beyond), heard a whisper about the pledge having been tried and adjudicated before I was even born.
I offer this thread as a way to discuss this situation and perhaps bring us all to a better understanding of our nation.
I am in no way some anarchist type, but I woke up this morning feeling very depressed which is uncharacteristic of me, and I realized that solicitor at last night's school board meeting had given me a punch that left a bruise.
Nor should they. I know some here will disagree with me, but I do not see how the government can force the recitation of a pledge or the singing of a song on a free people. I would note that is IMO, different from taking an oath; an oath of office, of citizenship, a military oath, as except under a military draft (conscription if you will), those are entered into voluntarily.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/whats-conservative-about-pledge-allegiance
I'm 69 years old and I have NEVER in my life known that the pledge had been questioned and taken to court.
No offence but perhaps you might have researched that beforehand, especially as a school board member.
Objections to the Pledge of Allegiance and resulting court cases including all the way to the USSC, go back to the first case in 1940 involving Jehovah's Witnesses, which the Witnesses lost but then was overturned in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette in 1943.
Since then there have been numerous law suits resulting from the addition in 1954 of the words “Under God”.
With all that being said, and the rather disturbing and socialist and statist origins of the Pledge of Allegiance, as I love my country, I still stand, place my hand over my heart and recite (although I do not say the words “Under God”) and I stand and sing the National Anthem.
However, if the day ever comes when the government (and government is the key word here) would enact legal penalties - fines or imprisonment for me not doing so, that is the day I become a conscientious objector.
“I was born in 1948 so this would have been in 1953 or there-abouts.”
I, too, was born in ‘48, and have the same memories. I also recall music classes where we had paper back books and sang hymns from them. We also learned the theme songs from the military branches; I still remember them. And we had “release time class” — “religious instruction”, where we could leave school early one day a week, and go to the church of our choice for a class there.