To the editors of The Mane Event in response to “One State Under God…”:

When the modification of the Texas Pledge became apparent to me on the first day of the new school year, my displeasure expressed itself with a feeling of disbelief. Upon reading Mr. Maldonado’s biased and illogical article I found the need to reveal the other side of the argument (clearly ignored by Mr. Maldonado) that the amendment to the Texas Pledge is unconstitutional and disregards the rights of millions of Americans.

            The majority of the article in question justifies the new clause with history. The quote supposedly stated by Patrick Henry[1] that declared that our “Nation was founded…by Christians,” along with Dr. White’s claim of “our forefather’s…Christian Principles” is nonsense. The Founding Fathers were men of the Age of Enlightenment who united in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to create a nation based on free-thought of the individual; moreover, their primary influence in making the Constitution came from John Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, not “the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”[2] Additionally, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (1797) states that “the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.”[3]  The Constitution mentions religion only in exclusionary terms[4] and does not endorse any belief, while in turn allowing the freedom of thought to all. When asked about the absence of God in the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, the man who first proposed a new constitution after the failure of the Articles of Confederation, sarcastically remarked that the delegates “forgot” about Him.[5] Though one may point to the Declaration of Independence as proof of a Christian heritage (whilst the document was not a plan for a government body), the author, Thomas Jefferson, a self-proclaimed deist, advocated the separation of church and state (a clear opposite of the Texas Pledge’s intention) and neglected to reference Jesus Christ. The facts that several Founding Fathers were Christians, early settlers of Texas who believed in deity, and that Sam Houston was a Rocky Creek Baptist, hold no power over the words and intentions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. A belief held throughout history cannot justify the removal of basic rights of individuals.

            Drafted by James Madison, The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” When asked what the intent of this Establishment Clause was, Thomas Jefferson wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State.[6]

Jefferson coined the term “separation of church and State” and earlier instituted his beliefs in Virginia.

Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.[7]             

Influenced by Jefferson’s work, Madison (who once also wrote that “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind”[8]) stated, in response to a Virginian bill that would help fund the preservation of the Episcopal clergy, that “in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society, and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance.”[9] The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed with the Jeffersonian view of the Establishment Clause. In the 1962 case Engel v Vitale, the court determined that a public’s school practice of starting the day with a prayer in New York was unconstitutional because

Under [the First] Amendment's prohibition against governmental establishment of religion, as reinforced by the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, government in this country, be it state or federal, is without power to prescribe by law any particular form of prayer which is to be used as an official prayer in carrying on any program of governmentally sponsored religious activity[10].

A year later, the court similarly ruled on a case involving opening a school day with a reading from the Bible.

It is true that religion has been closely identified with our history and government…This is not to say, however, that religion has been so identified with our history and government that religious freedom is not likewise as strongly embedded in our public and private life.[11]

The ideal of the separation of church and State as revealed by Jefferson, Madison, and the Supreme Court applies to any state law via the Fourteenth Amendment, including Texas House Bill 1034 that led to the change in the Texas Pledge. Religion is a private feeling and belief that belongs in private environments such as homes and religious institutions and not in public, government established places such as James E. Taylor High School.

            Using the previously defined system of laws it is possible to realize the unconstitutional nature of the Texas Pledge; however, a further understanding of the state of being of the Pledge of Allegiance is also necessary in opposing the modification. Congress added the phrase “one nation under God” into the pledge in response to “godless Communism” and under the age of McCarthyism and the Red Scare in 1954 where, as Arthur Miller stated in The Crucible, “a political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence.”[12] Miller’s statement provides the reasons why little dissention arose from the law at the time (an evident modern example is Congress’ approval of President Bush’s Patriot Act weeks after the September 11^th attacks even though the act blatantly abuses the rights of Americans). However, the motherly lesson that “two wrongs don’t make a right” applies to the Texas Pledge when it reflects the Pledge of Allegiance[13]. Surprisingly not mentioned in Mr. Maldonado’s article, a court in Dallas has already rejected a notion to remove “one state under God” from the Texas Pledge stating

The U.S. Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear for decades that patriotic tributes to God are allowed under the Constitution[14]

However, Douglas Linder, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, disagrees:

[The] court in Dallas is certainly not right when it says this issue is abundantly clear.  A federal appeals court found the addition of [“one Nation under God”] to violate the First Amendment, but the US Supreme Court ducked the issue on technical grounds.

The test is usually whether the law (in this case, the addition of the words “one state under God”) had primarily a religious purpose.  If the answer to that is “yes,” then precedent suggests the law should be struck down.[15]

Linder refers to the “Lemon Test” that determines whether a law violates the Establishment Clause.[16] The constitutionality of the Texas Pledge derives then, from the intention of the government when the law passed. The bill’s sponsor, House Representative Debbie Riddle, declared that she was “simply mirroring our national pledge.”[17] On the contrary, in another interview Riddle revealed her true meaning in writing the bill: “[to acknowledge] that…we are one state under God.”[18] The Pledge encourages a specific belief that defies other beliefs that American and Texan residents have, giving it “a religious purpose” that makes it unconstitutional.

            The revised Texas Pledge violates the rights of non-believers, rejects previous understandings of the separation of church and state, and originated “to promote one religious perspective that is exclusive.”[19] The evidence supports my belief that this pledge needs to be re-modified to its original purpose of displaying patriotism to the State of Texas. As the Supreme Court decided in 1963, “a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion:” the Pledge leads towards a dark path reminiscent of the Dark Ages of Europe.

Sincerely,

James Sadler

Junior