The ruling of a lower federal court that the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional is not surprising.
What is surprising is the furor. I started school in Montana in 1925 and well remember school assemblies at which the Pledge of Allegiance was recited
The court has not found the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, just the gratuitous adding of the two words, added long after the pledge was written. Not the first time a law passed by Congress was so found.
Nor is it surprising that it took a long time for the challenge to reach a higher court.
There is no reason that the pledge cannot still be recited. And state schools superintendent Terry Bergeson’s statement that the schools should continue opening the school day with the pledge the way they have for the last 87 years begs the question.
For many years, before the adding of those two words, it was recited in this state and quite probably in every state in the Union. Taking out the two words does not vitiate the Pledge of Allegiance.
Francis Bellamy (1855 – 1931), a Baptist minister, wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance in August 1892.
What a tempest in a teapot!
Everett
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