Amy Minor is a featured editorialist from Granite Hills' AP English Language and Composition class. She argues that students should not have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school.

In 1895, Francis Bellamy penned the Pledge of Allegiance for the popular magazine Youth’s Companion.  As Bellamy would later state, the sole purpose of the pledge was to teach children obedience as a virtue.  It wasn’t until 1945 that the speech was adopted as our national pledge and made a requirement to be stated in school.  During the Cold War, hoping to separate ourselves from the “godless” communists, we took it upon ourselves to show America’s unwavering loyalty to God.  In this, in 1954 the controversial words “Under God” were added to America’s pledge, deliberately flaunting the separation of church and state.  As President Dwight Eisenhower said after the words were added, “these…remind Americans spiritual and moral principles alone give dignity to man, and upon which our way of life is founded.”  They failed to mention, however, students of different faith and values who were forced to recite the Pledge under Supreme Court ruling.  Jehovah’s Witnesses, who even before the words “Under God” were added stated it was against their religious belief to pledge to anything other than God, had to recite the pledge under a law which was clearly under violation of the First Amendment.  As many people believe today, America was founded on religious beliefs and values, and the pledge is incomplete without reference to God.  Yet what about people who do fall under any religious category?  Are we really going to attest to what ex-president George H. Bush said, that “atheists shouldn’t be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots?”

As Libertarians and other groups would say, swearing any form of loyalty oath to a state is a form of Socialism.  This, therefore, goes completely against the open, liberal and free society America claims to be.  And is this not exactly what America was fighting against in the Cold War?  Other citizens object to the Pledge of Allegiance under the belief that America has become so lost in its values that there is nothing left to pledge to.  Why are they forced to pledge to something that they do not believe in?  Would this not in essence take away from the words “liberty and justice for all,” (which considering our history has never been a legitimate statement)?  And if adults cannot agree on pledging allegiance, can you not call it exploitation and morally wrong to make children recite the pledge they neither understand nor have the ability to object to?

As a divided country, it makes sense that people would object to the Pledge of Allegiance.  Yet over the past four decades, America in its lack of equipped leaders has fallen from grace, leaving behind a pledge whose words have become so ineffectual that people absentmindedly say them without listening to their meaning.  There are many reasons not to stand every morning with your hand over your heart to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Not only is it unconstitutional and flaunts the separation of church and state, but it has now become a tool for the exploitation of children who cannot possibly grasp what the Pledge intends to do.  If America were to act out now what it has supposedly stood for for over two hundred years, the Pledge of Allegiance would be said only as a personal choice, and not forced into the education system and upon children.

Read the opposing editorial by clicking here!