[cake_crumb]

"The government has no business forcing children to recite such a patently nationalistic oath anyway, and to compound it by coercing acknowlegement of a religious entity just makes it worse"

Children were forced to recite the Pledge in school as our way of assimilating the huge quantities of refugees from Germany and the Soviet Union. The practice of FORCING children to recite a pledge of patriotism to the flag of the United States of America, where they reside and who's schools are educating them, was STOPPED back in the 1970s because Jehovah's witnesses considered it idol worship.

Since then, the recitation of a Pledge of patriotism and the mention of some nameless, generic deity (I have a Jewish background and KNOW the term "God" is generic) has been VOLUNTARY.

[E Rocc]

Children were forced to recite the Pledge in school as our way of assimilating the huge quantities of refugees from Germany and the Soviet Union. The practice of FORCING children to recite a pledge of patriotism to the flag of the United States of America, where they reside and who's schools are educating them, was STOPPED back in the 1970s because Jehovah's witnesses considered it idol worship.

The decision was in 1943, at the height of World War II. The God reference didn't even exist yet. While the plaintiffs were JWs, they had the support of a lot of mainstream organizations.

-Eric