“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

There are two words in there that shouldn’t be in there, can you spot them? Answer: under God.

In a pure poetic sense, they don’t fit. They sound completely mashed in there. When people say “one nation under God / indivisible,” they speed through the line as fast as possible and it doesn’t fit the meter. Everything else is said slow and fits rhythmically. It also sounds weird that the one word indivisible is set off separately from that long line. When said the other way “one nation / under God / indivisible” it still sounds tacked in there. It’s an exact syllabic repetition. It sounds extra and uneeded. You might as well tack in 100 three-syllable lines. Say it yourself without the “under God” and see how much better it flows.

More importantly, the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional with those lines in there. It forces one to admit to a faith in order to pledge allegiance to this country. It establishes a fact that there is a god. Any profession of faith in a god is a religious statement. No matter which way you look at it, god equals religion. Therefore, the Pledge of Allegiance specifically violates the establishment clause of the first amendment. It also violates the free exercise clause. I’ve heard that it doesn’t because it’s not specific to one religion. If it wasn’t specific to the Christian God, it would say “under a god” not “under God.” The capital letter makes it a proper noun, or a name, specifically, the name of the Christian God.

Some may say, I’m not forced to say the pledge, so I shouldn’t complain. It doesn’t matter because it’s the country’s pledge, not just something I recite. Besides, I want to recite the pledge. It’s not fair that I should have to say I believe in a god to profess allegiance to my country when I don’t believe in a god.

I want “under God” specifically removed from the pledge because it wasn’t in there before. It was added in for the purpose of making children profess faith in the Christian God. (Don’t believe me, look up what the president said when signing it in to effect.) Taking out religious references from sources that originally contained religion would be defacing art. Read the Coda from Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451. However, adding religious references to sources that don’t contain them defaces art just as much as the other way around. What if the word God were inserted all over the Constitution?

Adding “under God” to the pledge ruined the poetry, and made it unconstitutional. The meaning of each word in the pledge carries great weight, and I don’t wish for the United States to deface it with proselytization.

[11/06/03 – EDIT: I have responded to the one comment for this entry.]