Posted on 11/23/2003 10:09:24 AM PST by MegaSilver
I think Mary Pitman Kitch ("Erasing God at our peril," Nov. 16) is wrong to defend the use of "under God" in "The Pledge of Allegiance."
The education of children should be about exposing them to alternatives, teaching them to think and allowing them the freedom to make their own choices, and that includes the freedom to decide whether they can believe in a "God."
The religious right seems to think that education is about the indoctrination of children to believe the same things they believe.
This country was founded on the principle of religious freedom. We purport to be tolerant of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews and others. This should equally apply to agnostics and atheists.
DAVE JAMES Sublimity
God and democracy
I found myself halfway agreeing with Mary Pitman Kitch's argument in "Erasing God at our peril," that deleting "under God" from "The Pledge of Allegiance" "could spark a religious backlash."
But then I thought, what if someone suggested adding to the pledge so it read "under God and Jesus"? Some Christians might approve, but I suspect most Christians, and certainly all other faith groups, would be appalled.
It would marginalize non-Christians; it would be undemocratic and divisive. It would be wrong in the same way as denying women and blacks voting rights was wrong, and denying gays the right to a civil union is wrong.
In these cases, liberals, atheists and free-thinkers were, and are, for expanding human rights, and religious conservatives were, and are, for the status quo.
Leaving "under God" in the pledge is also wrong. It means that those who don't have god-beliefs are marginalized.
EVELYN SHERR Corvallis
Nation founded by rationalists
In her article, "Erasing God at our peril," Mary Pitman Kitch makes the unsubstantiated claim that "our very freedoms derive from religious ideals."
We should recall that in 1776, religion enforced dogma through the Holy Inquisition, and divinely anointed kings answered not to their subjects but only to God.
American political history tells us that the founders were deeply influenced by the ideas of Locke, Hobbes and Montesquieu. The chief appeal of these Enlightenment thinkers was their rationalism and their rejection of a divinely ordained government. They brought us political liberty and freedom of conscience through representative democracy and the separation of church and state.
The founders established a secular government that stood in stark contrast to what James Madison called the fruits of almost 15 centuries of Christianity: ignorance, servility, superstition, bigotry and persecution.
JOHN KOVASH West Linn
God references inappropriate
No one wants, nor assumes the ability, to erase God, nor are they trying to remove historic references to religion. What Michael Newdow's lawsuit does is require the removal of inappropriate references to God, which imply a state-sponsored religion, to help maintain this separation.
A cursory analysis of Mary Pitman Kitch's comments reveal the dishonest, alarmist, bait-and-switch arguments that characterize the "believers' " attempts to establish a state-sponsored religion, the most egregious of which is hiding behind an imaginary, righteous majority of "salt-of-the-earth" Americans. (Why not the other spices? What about paprika-of-the-earth Americans?)
Those of us who believe that reason should take center stage in the public square won't be intimidated by the threat of a religious backlash, and I hope, neither will the Supreme Court.
LAWRENCE L. ROBB West Linn
Where was writer in '54?
Too bad Mary Pitman Kitch wasn't at The Oregonian in 1954 to write an editorial titled "Inserting God at our peril."
She might have warned us of how "sadly polarizing" the addition of "under God" to our "Pledge of Allegiance" would be, how it would "deeply offend millions of Americans," and how it would "deface a historic monument of our faith" in the separation of church and state on which this nation was founded. Too bad.
BURL ROSS Lake Oswego
Lord's Prayer not an issue here
It's what Mary Pitman Kitch doesn't say that seems dishonest to me. It is not until the end of her article that she acknowledges that the phrase "under God" was inserted in "The Pledge of Allegiance" during the 1950s at the behest of then-President Eisenhower.
The pledge itself, in spite of repeated references to Benjamin Franklin, who lived in the 18th century, was not written until the late 19th century.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Ellen Rosenblum might have been made to recite the Lord's Prayer in public school, but she did it in Illinois, not in Portland. I was a student in the Portland Public Schools from 1945 until 1956, and never once was I asked to say the Lord's Prayer.
JUDITH WYSS Southeast Portland
As well they should be.
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it.--Ben Franklin to Thomas Paine
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