"Meaning of" removing "under God"

[Robert Sheridan]

Prof. Scarberry says:  “I'm happy to have Odin worshippers think of Odin
when they say "under God" in the pledge.”
 
I’m in complete agreement.
 
Since I happen, probably, to be one of the few Odin-worshippers on this
site, why don’t we just change the wording of Da Pledge to ‘under Odin?’

 
Then Prof. Scarberry and the millions of others can think of God when
they say “under Odin” in the pledge.
 
The good professor’s argument reminds me of one that strikes me as being
similar which I heard more than once when I was young and interested in
learning to swing a golf club.  I’m left-handed, which explains a lot,
and left-handed clubs were scarce where I came from.  “Swing
right-handed, and you’ll get a lot more power,” I was advised, “since
righties use their left hand to provide power and your left hand is
stronger and blah, blah. blah.”  
 
What killed the argument was that I’d never heard, before or since, of a
natural righty deciding to play left-handed

 
-----Original Message-----
From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Scarberry, Mark
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 2:57 PM
To: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: "Meaning of" removing "under God"
 
Prof. Schweber continues to misunderstand my point. I'm happy to have
Odin worshippers think of Odin when they say "under God" in the pledge.
The whole point of my defense of "under God" (or at least the major
point) has been that so many of us with so many different religious or
quasi-religious views can use the term in good conscience. 
 
Further, Prof. Schweber's notion that I must have forgotten the
existence of the Constitution if I think a belief in something divine is
needed in order to uphold liberty is also puzzling, or perhaps just
dismissive. Jefferson noted, as Dan Conkle pointed out, that belief in
God was the foundation for religious liberty. I might remind Prof.
Schweber that the Soviet Union had a constitution that guaranteed, on
paper, lots of wonderful human rights. In 1954 Congress certainly had
before it an example of a state (the USSR) that rejected any notion that
it was limited by any higher principles and which, as a result, ignored
the written guarantees of rights in its Constitution. 
 
Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine University School of Law
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Howard H. Schweber [mailto:schweber at polisci.wisc.edu] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2004 2:29 PM
To: Conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: RE: "Meaning of" removing "under God"
 
Prof. Scarberry wrote:
Send me a post suggesting that I've forgotten that the Constitution
exists,
and that I'm in favor of swearing allegiance to Odin, and I'll give you
a
sarcastic response too.


Prof. Scarberry is offended at the notion that he might favor the
religious preferences of Odin worshippers in addition to those of
Christians.  That's really the point, isn't it?  One man's
revealed-true-God is another man's pagan idol.  Which tells us something
about the supposed ecumenicism of the word "God" in this context.
Polytheists, worshippers of a female divinity, worshippers of multiple
divinities, atheists, and agnostics -- a group not yet mentioned, I
notice -- have reason to resent having the state tell their children
that a single, male, "God" rules over the United States.  That may or
may not be problematic under the Establishment Clause, but surely the
resolution of the issue turns on some principle greater than "the
majority likes it this way."  If the value of the religious affirmation
is that it identifies the limit to the authority of the state, how is it
that the authority of the state extends to dictating theology?

Prof. Scarberry was also upset at the suggestion that he had forgotten
about the Constitution.  I don't know what I'm missing here, but Prof.
Scarberry said that in the absence of belief in divine natural law there
is no restriction on the state.  Well, what happened to the
Constitution?  The Constitution, with its notable lack of any reference
to divine authority, stands as the greatest declaration of the
Enlightenment belief that people can be committed to a secular political
order that restricts the authority of the state.  For that matter, what
other than a belief in a metaphysical mandate has ever justified an
unlimited state?  And it is not only the state that is to be feared;
religious pogroms of one kind or another have chased as many refugees to
these shores as overreaching civil authority.

Let me remind anyone who is still reading of what started this exchange.
Prof. Scarberry declared that "religious people" -- among whom, I now
know, he includes himself (which was not at all clear at the outset --
will refuse to say the Pledge at all if it does not contain a reference
to divinity consistent with their particular conception of that term.
The proposition that patriotic allegiance should be held hostage to
satisfaction of sectarian demands raises disturbing speculations that I
will not explore here.

I would be interested to hear if there is anyone out there who, as a
child, declined to recite the Pledge and did not feel ostracized for
doing so.  Every person I have spoken to who was in that position
suffered consequences ranging from social embarrassment to physical
violence.  I also submit that it is preposterous to think that a 5, or
an 8, or a 12 year old child will understand "[a] nation under God" to
mean "the state is not omnipotent nor legitimately omnipresent" rather
than "God rules us."  Justice Kennedy had it exactly right in Lee:
"Finding no violation under these circumstance would place objectors in
the dilemma of participating, with all that implies, or protesting.  We
do not address whether that choice is acceptable if the affected
children are mature adults, but we think the State may not, consistent
with the Establishment Clause, place primary and secondary school
children in this position."  Declare all the theistic dogmas -- in the
name of any god you choose -- at home, or in your church, or in private
conversations, or on the courthouse steps.  But do not force it on my
children in the name of "liberty."

Howard Schweber
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