CRAWFORD — Crawford's Tonkawa Park was adorned with an array of American flags Thursday as nearly 50 people gathered there for a Fourth of July recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. The noon event was staged in protest of a decision last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ruling called the pledge unconstitutional because the phrase "one nation, under God" violates separation of church and state....
...Another motivation was to try to push members of Congress to accept President Bush's nominations to fill the 31 vacancies on the circuit court, Duty said. "President Bush has nominated good quality judges, and it's appalling that those nominations are being held up in the Senate," she said. "If we can get good judges in there, we have a much better chance of this not happening again." Participants gathered before a Marine Corps flag guard, and Crawford's Boy Scout Troop 452 displayed the colors. State Rep. Holt Getterman, R-Waco, led the Pledge. "We have gotten to the point in our country that we are so politically correct," Getterman said. "We need to get to the point where we are patriotically correct. Our nation was founded as a faith-based country, and we want to celebrate that." ......
....participants who came from all over Central Texas were asked to sign a petition opposing the circuit court decision. "We nearly pushed people out of the way to sign it," said Opal Davidson of Laguna Park. "Our country was founded under God, and I cannot believe people would want to remove that from our pledge." Court Ruling On Pledge Protested in Crawford