CaptainDave

I'd LOVE to see a copy of that cartoon!

Fr.Andrew

Hello, Buffman!
Thanks for the welcome! I'm a "transplant", myself...moved here in '87...so I can't claim to be a Mainiac.
Maybe my grandchildren.

Fr.Andrew

Hello Alonzo Fyfe!
That's a good strategy--to paraphrase the pledge so as to make the theists uncomfortable. Put the shoe on the other foot.
Both you and 4th Generation Atheist are right, of course--if this becomes an in-your-face issue, there's no question of the outcome.

Hello 4th Generation Atheist!
Excellent analogy! Gay rights gathers steam when "the" gay community becomes "our" gay community.
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

Oresta

Here's something I came across in the July 15 Issue of The New Yorker. Sorry, I can't get a link to this article by H. Hertzberg on the issue of "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Hertzberg tells of the history of the pledge and its author, Francis Bellamy, and asks how would Bellamy feel today about the clause "under God", added many years later. "W.W.F.B.D?" asks Hertzberg, and concludes Bellamy would probably not have liked the politics behind the addition of the phrase, but "the phrase itself probably wouldn't have bothered him."
But, most importantly, Hertzberg goes on to say that, "As an editor and rhetorician, though, Bellamy would notice that the phrase has been inserted in the wrong place. It should be 'one nation indivisible, under God.' As is, it sounds as if it's God that's indivisible (which would be news to the trinitarians among us)."

How much mileage do you think one might get out of pointing out to the Christians that the Knights of Columbus' ill-informed placement of "indivisible" modifies its nearest antecedent "God," thereby corrupting the originally intended meaning of "nation" as indivisible and trashing trinitarian doctrine in the bargain?

I know, I know. This grammatical point is absolutely useless to the issue of a First Amendment argument; but I get a perverse kick from considering that some three generations of kids - thanks to the KoC and other Christian lobby groups - have been pledging allegiance to a nation under a nontrinitarian god, i.e., not the Christian god of the KoC.

edoggsmooth

Am I missing something?

Court says PoA is unconstitutional. Politicians say they are wrong. Thus politicians say PoA is constitutional.

If it truly is constitutional, why would they have to CHANGE the constitution to make it constitutional?

Email your reps.

-ed

Autonemesis

I offer the following line of reasoning:

Further points and pitfalls to this approach:
<a href="http://www.religioustolerance.org/prayer.htm" target="_blank">http://www.religioustolerance.org/prayer.htm</a>