By Joel Schwartz
DAILY BRUIN COLUMNIST
[email protected]
A Jewish legend speaks of a town called Helm, where an angel
carrying a sack of fools flew low over a hill, tearing the sack and
populating the town with imbeciles. The legend is true, except it
seems to be Telegraph Hill that ripped the sack, pouring fools into
San Francisco Bay. For only in a place of complete idiocy can a
court outlaw “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance,
by deeming the phrase unconstitutional.
These mistaken judges and anyone who may agree with them are in
dire need of a refreshment course in U.S. political history.
Ironically, trying to be constitutional by banning “under
God” because it “endorses religion” is patently
unconstitutional. If one actually understands the Constitution and
places a greater emphasis on its principles than on a political
agenda, it is impossible to reach these judges’
conclusion.
The words of the First Amendment regarding religion are,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Nowhere
does the Constitution prohibit religion from the public arena. The
only way the inclusion of “under God” could be
considered a law respecting an establishment of religion, and
therefore unconstitutional, is if children in every classroom were
forced to say these words. During a seven-year stint as an atheist,
I left out the “offensive” words and nobody came to
take me away, nor was I chastised.
In contrast, this new ruling conflicts with the part of the
First Amendment that bars “prohibiting the free exercise (of
religion).” By specifically banning the words, the court is
telling children that by law, they are not allowed to mention God.
This is exactly the type of abuse of freedom of religion and speech
that the Bill of Rights was created to abolish.
And of course the law of unintended consequences is always
hiding in the shadows, ready to rear its ugly head and pounce on
our freedoms anytime more unintelligent laws are passed. If this
tragic ruling is upheld, then the next logical step is to ban the
word “God” completely from any type of public usage.
After all, says the judge, just saying “God” is
endorsing religion.
Therefore, if one agrees with this ruling, then one must say
good-bye to any theological studies at any public university or
school. Jewish Studies with Rabbi Seidler-Feller at UCLA? Shalom
and good riddance. To hell with the history of witchcraft and
Christianity with Teo Ruiz, for paganism is a religion too. Rene
Descartes can kiss his meditations good-bye because they dare to
provide arguments for the existence of God.
In fact, all philosophy, religion, history, literature and
science classes will have to be heavily censored, since we do not
want the poor children to be indoctrinated with any religious ideas
in a public setting.
This idea may seem absurd, but it is ideologically similar to,
if not indistinct from, the mind-set that would disallow God from
the Pledge of Allegiance.
Unfortunately this mind-set usually held by the radical left is
infecting mainstream society with its silliness. Hints of it were
distinguished when the press lambasted George W. Bush for saying
Jesus Christ was his favorite philosopher. Even more was made clear
with the condemnation of the phrase “God bless America”
by many radical left wing columnists after Sept. 11.
But what these so-called protectors of freedom completely missed
is that without the idea of God, there would have never been an
United States. Thomas Jefferson put it very eloquently when he
penned, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all
men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and
the pursuit of Happiness.”
This radical concept called freedom, embraced by our
forefathers, is the idea that people live for themselves, not some
tyrannical state or master. It was derived from Deism. Locke,
Voltaire, Rousseau, Paine and Jefferson, some of whom were harsh
critics of organized religion, were all Deists. They believed that
the universal rights of humanity came from a divine origin. Without
a Creator that has endowed objective rights and wrongs, there is no
way to say that freedom is better than slavery.
While it is true that religion has caused much human suffering
and continues to do so (Taliban anyone?), the idea of a single
source of human rights has provided much liberation. The
abolitionists and first feminists were Christian, and Martin Luther
King Jr. was a man of the cloth.
So come this July 4, watch the fireworks and keep your eyes
skyward as you thank God that you are free to do as you please,
even if you are an atheist or agnostic. And hope that the
foolishness of certain San Francisco judges does not contaminate
the rest of this country.