Editor,
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (1st Amendment to the Constitution).
This is where separation of church and state is clearly addressed in the Constitution. If it is required that the pledge of allegiance be recited by certain groups in current form then it clearly violates “no law respecting the establishment of religion.” By requiring people to say the pledge of allegiance with phrasing that implies a supreme being, you are in effect forcing these same people to acknowledge the presence of a supreme being, be it contrary to their personal religion or not. Should an individual’s religion be agnostic or atheist this would be in contradiction their free exercising of their religion. While I personally like having “under God” in the Constitution, case law and Constitutional interpretation say otherwise. We must follow the letter of the Constitution, good, bad or indifferent.
Seth Warren Heath
UNM Student
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