Judge rules that forcing a kid to stand for pledge of allegiance is ...

unconstitutional.


WEST PALM BEACH -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that it is unconstitutional to require a student to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

Judge Kenneth Ryskamp also ruled that a student does not have to get a parent's permission to be excused from reciting the pledge.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state Board of Education and state Education Commissioner John Winn on behalf of a Boynton Beach High School student who said he was disciplined for not standing during the pledge last year. Cameron Frazier, then a 17-year-old junior, was told by teacher Cynthia Alexandre that he was ``so ungrateful and so un-American'' after he twice refused to stand for the pledge in her classroom Nov. 8, the lawsuit said.

Requiring Frazier to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance is ``in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights,'' the lawsuit said.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0601pledgeruling,0,4467232.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

I will stand for the pledge out of respect of others I may be with and because I love my country. I refuse to recite the pledge or hold my hand over my heart because it goes against my own religious beliefs. A pledge is a promise, and I will not promise to put my commitment to my country above my commitment to my faith. My faith tells me not to kill innocent people. My country now says that killing innocent children in Iraq is okay. I just can't promise to support that.
Aside from that I could never understand the "allegiance to the flag" part. I mean, it's just a flag, a piece of cloth most likely made by people earning substandard wages.

Imagine the outcry if some us started reciting the pledge in Spanish.

"Con libertad y justicia para todos."

That line needs no translation.

I'm passing it on.

And good for that student, too.

Thomas Paine would have stood with Cameron Frazier on this one, I feel.

...that any pledge of allegiance given under duress or because one is being cajoled by a teacher is a farce?

I don't have a problem with the pledge per se. I'm not even all that annoyed by the totally unnecessary "Under God" they stuck in in the 50's, but I do have a problem with FORCING kids or RIDICULING them into reciting the pledge. That does NOT teach them loyalty or pride in country, it teaches a kind of cowering fealty and cowardice - the kind most republicans practice. They wouldn't understand real patriotism if it hit them in the face.

The sleeper cell terrorists know that just crossing your fingers while saying the Pledge means that the Pledge can't legally be applied to them.

:wtf:

Never mind me, I just need to get some sleep.

This is what is meant by "with liberty and justice for all".

Francis Bellamy, the guy who wrote the Pledge back in 1892, would have been proud. After all, he was a Christian Socialist; a Baptist minister who did not originally place the words "under God" in the pledge.

The Knights of Columbus did that in 1954.

Bellamy, in fact, wanted to write with "equality, Liberty and justice for all" but they wouldn't let him. He was later forced to leave the church because of his socialist sermons.


Read more here.
http://history.vineyard.net/pledge.htm

I was suspended from the sixth grade for this very reason.
My mother had to go to the schoolboard and fight for me.
1966 or thereabouts.

It's amazing that this is such a big deal to some people...

during the Vietnam War.
I still think these beliefs and the right to express them are important!

I hope we see more people standing up to the system now that we are killing again in the name of America - for no good reason.

How American does it get, to exercise your freedom of speech and freedom of religion like that?
In SIXTH GRADE!!

I'm impressed.

:patriot:

It would occasionally earn us glares from teachers.

i said the pledge once. i see no reason why i should ever have to say it again.

usually i was finishing my homework while all the other students who couldn't be bothered to remember their pledge from the day before were saying it all over again.

...during the illegal and immoral war in Vietnam. There is no reason for this thing or useful thing about it.

Back then many of us long hairs did refuse. I imagine neatly groomed kids in popular brand name clothes have a harder time refusing to say this. Glad they won the right not to be strong armed to preform a useless ritual before class in the morning.

the Supreme Ct. ruled laws requiring standing for the pledge uncostitutional in during WWII. The case was brought by Jehovah's Witnesses and Quakers.

They only whine on what? Every day ending "-ay"?

the supreme court, the court ends up ruling that the student does in fact HAVE rights, despite what the schools may try to make students think.