God should be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance.

I realize that my opponent will have her work cut out for her as she is not only pro and instigator bearing the brunt of the Burden of Proof but that she is bucking a historical consent and consensus for the pledge of allegiance to include ‘under God’ I will succinctly argue for two main contentions. Layout C1 – No separation of church and state is warranted, and is merely an interpretation of a single branch of government namely 9 people, especially as this is a recent non-traditional interpretation by 9 overly political individuals. As well, the Executive and legislative branches disagreed with the Supreme Courts decisions. In God we trust is in no way religious though it is theistic. Thus is it is secular. The purpose was twofold, first to counter the Supreme Court decision of 1947 and second to combat atheistic propaganda. C2 – Eliciting loyalty is the ultimate purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance. Clearly citing divine incumbency is the highest form one could elicit. So the pledge appropriately appeals and affirms the loyalty of the majority of citizens within the country, thus leaving ‘under God’ within the pledge confirms the most efficacious form of the pledge of allegiance. *** Contention 1: Rebuttal on my opponent’s first point: “For one, Separation of Church and State is in place for a reason. Religious morality should have no affect whatsoever on the law, and God's place in the Pledge is arguably the most blatant violation of this. ” There is no ‘separation of church and state’ in the constitution. [1] There is merely an interpretation of 9 judges, ignoring the precedent process of our legal system. [3] Considering relevant Supreme Court decisions: The first Supreme Court decision in the 1880’s concluded no separation of church and state, was implied in Thomas Jefferson’s letter either. In fact, the letter meant the opposite. Reynolds v. United States case in 1878 “[T]he rightful purposes of civil government are for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. In th[is] . . . is found the true distinction between what properly belongs to the church and what to the State. ” [2] The subsequent follow years and opposite interpretations by the Supreme Court are based upon a Supreme Court decision ignoring precedence of the previous court, to which they were supposed to defer. This court case typically cited was: In 1947, in the case Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court declared, "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. " Which is the foundation precedent for all current Supreme Court decisions of which ignore the older (Reynolds v. United States case in 1878) and more valid precedent that cites Jefferson’s entire letter in context, concluding no separation as defined today. This is a violation of Precedent. “American law is based on the principle of precedent, meaning that if a court has already ruled on a given legal issue and another case arises with the same legal issue, the holding in the previous case will be applied to the new case. The use of precedents helps to promote stability in the legal system, as all parties are given notice as to the current state of the law. Adhering to the use of precedent is also known as the doctrine of stare decisis (Latin: "it stands decided"). ”[3] Recently the Supreme Court has started making rulings in a ‘middle ground fashion’ that religion and references to God can be made assuming that no explicit religious preference is given, the legal definition of secular. [5] The idea that we are NOT an atheistic state but that secularism is maintained to avoid any religious preference. What my opponent seems to be proposing that America is an atheistic state, rather than a secular one, which is clearly not the case. We are not ‘without God, but we are without specific denominational preference. Neither the Executive Branch nor the legislative branches would concur with her in any way, and the 9person judicial Branch would only concur with a non-preferential status, not outright neglect of ‘God’ references. - We see the reasoning. At the Gettysburg address, Lincoln himself stated the fact: 'that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom. ' [4] The later addition to the pledge was to honor this new era that we were in as a direct result of the new birth the civil war gave us. Such interpretation has been held up by the Supreme Court, as a secular honoring of a religious tradition is a middle ground and is not ‘endorsement of any specific religion’. [5] *** Contention 2: The pledge addition ‘Under God’ was for Eisenhower and Congress was for the purpose of combating atheist indoctrination, which resulted in 100’s of millions of deaths, clearly a secular purpose. To quote my opponent: “Secondly, including God in the Pledge discriminates against atheists, polytheists, and anyone else of a religion that does not worship one God. ” - The second causal agent for the inclusion was the known atheist propaganda from communism rampant in the late 40’s and 50’s. Eisenhower and Congress both agreed to include this provision to combat atheism. [6] - Another civil war icon was “In God we Trust” and was adopted as the official motto of the United States and placed on coins also in the 1950’s to combat atheistic propaganda from the communist states. [7] Clearly atheists who have submitted to the propaganda should not be complaining about a tactic being used to combat their propaganda. This was a tool to combat an evil ideology that caused the murder of 100’s of millions of people in the 20th century. This is a clearly secular concept and with heated warrant. [8] The civil authorities clear concern was to elicit the loyalty of the masses and combat that widespread propangda that they were concerned would undermine the peace and safety of the American society. Given the murder count cited above, a hindsight validated viewpoint. *** Summary: We see clearly that my opponents points are not factually accurate, ignore the complexity of the political landscape and certainly do not meet the Burden of Proof to claim such a change is needed. We see that the purpose of the Pledge of Allegiance is to elicit the loyalty of citizens. Given that the majority of citizens are mono-theists, ‘Under God’ obviously should remain. We have seen also that the reference gives NO special religious treatment thus remains secular in nature and also meets Supreme Court interpretations of the Establishment Clause. To compound that, the reference honors a sacred time and speaks within our nations History as Abraham Lincoln claimed at Gettysburg “our nation was rebirthed anew fully ‘Under God’. All current constitutional interpretations are satisfied. This is further augmented by the concern of our civil authorities that our nation becoming atheist, rather than secular, would result in an infringement of peace and stability of our society as resulted in every atheistic state to date. [1] . http://www.wallbuilders.com...[2] . http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com... Reynolds v. United States case in 1878 [3]. http://www.uscourts.gov... [4] . http://showcase.netins.net... [5] . http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us... [6] . http://www.ushistory.org... [7] . http://undergod.procon.org... [8] . http://www.polishlibrary.org...