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Guest Commentary June 26, 2002
Pledge of Allegiance Ruling Offends All Logic
The Honorable Joe Lieberman
I rise in expressing dismay, outrage, and amazement at the news of the decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals declaring the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional.
When a staff member told me this, I frankly, thought they were joking. This is a decision that offends our national morality, that rejects the most universally-shared values of our country, that diminishes our unity and that attempts to undercut our strength at a time after September 11, when we need the strength and unity that our shared faith in God has historically brought the American people and does today.
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There may have been a more senseless, ridiculous decision issued by a court somewhere at some time, but I've never heard of it. I remember a day, a decade or so ago, when the Supreme Court issued a ruling saying that it was unconstitutional for a clergyman -- in that case, it was a rabbi -- to give an invocation at a high school graduation in Rhode Island. I couldn't believe that decision. In some sense, this decision is its progeny. But it offends the very basis of our rights as Americans.
My friend from Florida read from the Declaration of Independence. According to this decision of the 9th Circuit Court, the reading of the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional. Now, if that isn't turning logic and morality on its head, I don't know what is.
The Declaration is the first statement by our founders of our independence and the first declaration of the bases for our rights that have so distinguished our history in the 226 years since. It says in the first paragraph: "when the course of human events... to assume among the powers of earthed a separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's got entitled them." So right there, what's the basis of the assertion of independence? The right that we have under the laws of nature and nature's God.
And then in the second paragraph, famous to every schoolchild: "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." So that the premise of the rights that have distinguished America for the 226 years since, that were embraced in the Constitution as an expression of the declaration, all come from God. Not from the framers and the founders, as gifted as they were, not from the philosophers of the enlightenment who affected their judgments -- these rights were the endowment of our creator.
That judgment has framed our history in two ways. It has been the basis of our rights because it is from our shared belief in God and the foundation place it has in our system of government, as stated right here in the first statement of the first Americans, the Declaration of Independence, that we are all children of the same God. That means we all have the same rights.
It also has meant that we feel a deep sense of unity with one another. I remember after the terrible events of September 11 how struck I was by the classically American reaction that not only at that moment when we were so shaken by the horror, the inhumanity of what had happened, did we go to our houses of worship to ask for strength and purpose and comfort -- we went to each other's houses of worship. That's the American way. And we gained strength and purpose from it.
My dad served in World War II. My dad passed away 18 year ago. One of the treasured possessions of his that I have is a small Bible that he was given with a written statement in it from President Roosevelt and all who served in defense of our liberty in World War II got similar bibles, and to carry it with them as a source of strength. And it's been my honor each time I've been sworn in as a senator up there to put my hand on that Bible. It meant a lot to me personally. But under the twisted logic of this decision decision, it was unconstitutional for the United States military to give my dad and the generations of others since him the Bible as a source of strength and purpose.
It seems we have worked our way along a jurisprudential passage that has taken us to a result that I believe was totally unintended by the framers of the Constitution, by the writers of the Declaration of Independence, particularly by the drafters of the Bill of Rights, and this decision today is the most extreme and senseless expression of it.
We believe in the separation of church and state. We believe in freedom of religion. We believe in every individual's freedom to observe as he or she is moved in his or her heart to do so. We have always respected nonbelievers. But we have asked that the great majority of Americans who may approach the altar from different paths, nonetheless worship the same God, that we be not deprived of our rights to do so -- and to do so in a public context that does not diminish the rights of any one of us but enlarges the strengths and rights of the whole. That has been the gift of this country. I heard it once described by someone as America's civic religion -- nondenominational, deistic, god-centered, inclusive and tolerant.
I always felt that this pledge, with this simple statement that was added under President Eisenhower, that we pledge our loyalty to this one nation under God, was beyond question, beyond rebuke. It is the baseline, the most accessible statement of the source of this country's values and strengths. And to my way of thinking, it in no way compromises the most important aspect of the religion clauses, the freedom of religion. It doesn't compromise any single person's ability to worship god or not to worship God as they choose. And it certainly does not establish religion in the sense that the framers clearly intended, because they came from a country that had an official religion and discriminated against them because of their religion.
So in this sense, the American people have not lost their way -- I think a lot of our judges have in their decisions. And this one is so far out, so offensive that I hope it draws a reaction that is unifying and constructive, and my expectation of course is that this will be appealed. My hope is that the Supreme Court will overturn this decision. But if they do not, then we'll all join together as one, I would guess, to offer a constitutional amendment to make the recitation of the pledge appropriate.
Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, is a U.S. Senator from Connecticut. The above column has been adapted from a speech Sen. Lieberman delivered on the floor of the Senate, June 26, 2002. To contact her, Click Here.
The above column has been distributed by PoliticsOL.com.
