By Joel Schwartz
DAILY BRUIN COLUMNIST
jschwartz@media.ucla.edu
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.