Religious references should be removed from national obligations.

By definition, an obligation is "an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound. " Meeting this formal definition is the act of pledging allegiance to the United States flag, to which a person is morally bound as an American citizen, and the act of using the legally required US currency. A resounding problem concerning these two national obligations is the reference to God that they both contain. There are other obligations that have the same issue, such as swearing on the Bible when speaking in court, but for the purposes of this debate, "national obligations" will be limited to the Pledge of Allegiance and US currency. Their "religious references," quite obviously, are the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge and the words "In God We Trust" appearing on US paper money and coinage. The term "under God" was officially added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 under the presidency of Eisenhower. Eisenhower had attended a sermon by the Rev. Docherty where the reverend claimed that the Pledge was missing the "American spirit," which was purportedly represented by the use of the term "under God" in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The day after hearing the sermon, Eisenhower got the bill in motion to have those words added to the Pledge (1). Taking this basic history into consideration, the presence of "under God" at the very best is a dignified quote from the Gettysburg Address. However, as linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, professor at UC Berkeley School of Information, has pointed out, to people living in the time of Lincoln, "under God" meant "God willing" (1). Its current use in the Pledge is therefore a misquotation that would not be readily understood by Lincoln and his contemporaries. The main issue with the statement "under God," however, lies in the fact that it endorses Christianity as the true religion and God as the true religious power. This poses a problem for Americans that are not Christian, and particularly Americans that are atheists. In 2002, the phrase was ruled as an unconstitutional endorsement of monotheism when the Pledge was required in public schools, in a case brought about by Michael Newdow. This ruling was overturned in 2004 when it was shown that Newdow was not the legal guardian of the child for who he was speaking in the case, but the ruling was then later reestablished in 2005. Requiring the Pledge in public school was deemed a violation of the right to be "free from a coercive requirement to affirm God" (1). As this ruling demonstrates, having the phrase "under God" in the Pledge violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. .. " (2). While the average American that is past school age is not legally required to say the Pledge of Allegiance, it is their moral obligation as an American to recite the Pledge and show their patriotism whenever the opportunity arises. Therefore, having God referenced in the Pledge is, in fact, stifling freedom of religion and promoting Christianity. If the phrase "under God" is unconstitutional for use in the public school system, then it logically follows that the phrase is also unconstitutional for use in the general public. The phrase should be removed from the Pledge. "In God We Trust" first appeared on the two cent coin in 1864. It was added to the coin as a response to the overwhelming increase in religious sentiments during the Civil War. The phrase later appeared on paper currency in 1957, three years after the addition of "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance (3). According to James Howell Moorhead of the Princeton Theological Seminary, during the Civil War, when the phrase was first added to United States currency, Protestants "still enjoyed a significant numerical and cultural dominance" (4). It therefore makes sense that the phrase was added. However, according to the United States Religious Landscape Survey, only 51% of Americans self-identified as Protestant in 2007. While 78.4% of people did identify as some form of Christian, 16.1% of Americans considered themselves unaffiliated with any religion (5). This is certainly not the majority of the United States population, but it is a significant amount of people that should not be ignored. Numerically, in 2007 there were about 48,507,744 religiously unaffiliated people who would potentially take offense to references to God on US currency (6). Since the rise of Protestantism is what initially prompted the addition of "In God We Trust" to US coinage, and Protestants are rapidly losing their majority status, "In God We Trust" should be removed from United States coinage and paper money. Many people would argue that the main reason that these phrases persist in American culture is because America was founded as a Christian nation, so these religious references are merely a patriotic gesture toward the founding of our country. Although the Puritans that settled in North America in 1630 were Christian, the reason that they migrated to America in the first place was to escape both religious persecution and religious homogeneity. According to the Library of Congress, "The religious persecution that drove settlers from Europe to the British North American colonies sprang from the conviction. .. that uniformity of religion must exist in any given society" (7). I would argue that allowing God to permeate our national obligations is in effect attempting to create the same uniformity of religion that our pioneers were condemning and escaping from. Therefore, although the United States was founded by Christians, it was never intended to be a fully Christian nation. For the previously mentioned reasons and for this reason in particular, "under God" should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" should be removed from United States currency. (1) * . http://en.wikipedia.org... (2) * . http://en.wikipedia.org... (3) . http://www.ustreas.gov... (4) . http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org... (5) . http://religions.pewforum.org... (6) . http://www.census.gov... (7) . http://www.loc.gov... *Note: I would not normally cite wikipedia as a completely credible source, but seeing as debate.