Guest columnist
I pledge allegiance to freedom of belief

By Kathryn Robinson
Special to The Times

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Every Tuesday when I volunteer in my daughter's public-school kindergarten classroom, I stand with the kids as they salute the flag and recite with them the words that I've known since I was in kindergarten. Every Tuesday those words, familiar as a comfortable old sweater, make me uncomfortable.

I'm a writer, a parent, a public-school volunteer. I lead a Girl Scout troop and teach Sunday school and believe deeply in God. I'm also apparently in Congressman Jim McDermott's camp: one of the 1 in 10 a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll found objects to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

As members of the highest court in the land ponder this issue, which was argued before them under the watch of a legion of "Keep U.S.A. a nation under God" demonstrators last month, I find myself pondering it, too. And as I look around at the diversity of faces in my daughter's classroom, and as I get to know their families' diversity of beliefs, I encounter in bold relief the bottom line of my opposition: That diversity of beliefs is to be vigorously protected by the public institutions of this country. It's the timeworn lament of liberals and libertarians alike, who ask simply that our civic allegiances not constitute religious compulsion.

To those single-minded sign wavers who fervently respond that retaining "under God" will help Americans become the God-fearing Christians we were meant to be, I can think of no response to this that you would hear.

It's the arguments of the savvier advocates, the ones who grow wide-eyed and defensive at the mention of religious compulsion, that bear a closer look.

This isn't about religious compulsion, these defenders cry. Who said anything about religion? The "under God" reference in the Pledge of Allegiance shouldn't be confused with actual regard for the Almighty, they explain, but, rather, in the words of Theodore Olson, the Bush administration lawyer who argued the case, "an acknowledgment of the religious basis of the framers of the Constitution."

The phrase was inserted during the Cold War, by a Congress intent on distinguishing God-blessed America from the godless Soviet regime. Even at its nascence, then, "under God" was primarily a political slogan. Over the years, public-sphere invocations of the Almighty — from "God save the United States and this honorable court," to "In God we Trust," to "under God" — have become ceremonial civic conventions, as benign and essentially meaningless as eating turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving. Indeed, during last month's arguments, many justices suggested that the court might well rule that the words "under God" are simply a traditional expression of patriotism.

And that's what bothers me the most. Frankly, I don't understand why it doesn't offend believers of every faith who worship God. For as much as the wild-eyed evangelicals seek to honor God by putting God's name in the mouths of all Americans, it seems to me the mindless and/or politicized recitation of God's name only accomplishes the opposite: cheapening and secularizing the name of the Almighty to the point of intentional meaninglessness. The Ultimate Celebrity endorsement of the mighty U.S.A. brand.

Talk about taking the Lord's name in vain. Indeed, much as I suspect I would find this crusading atheist Michael Newdow a bit of a wingnut, I daresay that by advancing the radical idea that invoking the name of God ought to at least mean belief in God, he does more honor to the God I worship than any other player in this civic drama.

And not just honor to the God I worship... but honor to the words I bring to the task. As I look around at the kids mouthing the Pledge of Allegiance in the public school — kids whose families may or may not believe in God, kids who are rightly taught that we don't celebrate Rosh Hashana or Christmas on school grounds, kids who are beginning to piece together what religious freedom in America actually looks like — I think about what we're teaching them by compelling them to declare God's predominance.

We're teaching them that the words they speak don't really matter. That integrity must take a back seat to convention. That it's OK to put your hand on your heart and pledge something that you don't mean. These are lessons I wouldn't want my daughter learning in any setting, much less school.

Make no mistake: I'm all for pledges of patriotism. This grand experiment of a country with its messy democracy merits our loyalty, even our devotion. But maybe what Congressman McDermott was attempting to get at in his silent protest was the patriotic conviction that surely our polity can find sufficiently noble civic principles to unite under without having to drag in sectarian ones.

Like, say, freedom.

Kathryn Robinson is a Seattle writer.