Letters to the Editor: If we're a nation 'under God,' what about nonbelievers? (via latimesopinion )
Thanks to Nicholas Goldberg for addressing an issue that I contended with throughout my years in public school. As a lifelong atheist, I have always objected to forced public displays of religious belief.
We must value the national rituals that bind us together. Reciting the pledge and singing the national anthem are the opposite of performative, empty symbolism — because without them we’re a nation fractured into millions of myopic, quarrelsome individuals nursing their personal grievances. Let’s stress our commonalities and celebrate our country, which allows for broad criticism while striving always to become better.During my tenure as a teacher in the Fontana Unified School District, I taught several students who did not recite the Pledge of Allegiance due to their Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. The students would stand at attention, would not place their hand over their heart, and remain silent.
Rather than question my students’ loyalty to the U.S., I welcomed the chance for my classroom to serve as a laboratory where daily successful experiments were conducted protecting my Jehovah‘s Witnesses students’ constitutional rights. In the process, students of other faiths exercised their rights and observed how the Constitution should work.Goldberg writes, “As a nonbelieving American, I’m put off, to say the least, by the reference to God in the pledge.
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