The most major concern about the Pledge of Allegiance has never been whether or not it violates the Establishment clause of the Constitution. It certainly does (unless one believes that the word "God" can somehow "no God whatsoever"). But Constitutional legitimacy has never really been its problem. The mistake that most Americans make is believing that our Constitution, by itself, has ever been any kind of defense against the abridgment of our rights. Our record is pretty good when it comes to defending our rights against foreign bullies, but we seem to be utterly powerless when it comes to defending our rights from our own nation.

Obviously we don't have any problem playing fast and loose when it comes to restrictive interpretations of the Bill of Rights. After all, we live in a country where you can't buy an assault rifle or say "shit" on network television (and there's probably something about quartering soldiers that I can't quite remember).

The fact is, when in times of national crisis, whether real or imagined, Americans gladly threw aside any consideration for the principles of freedom at any cost, and embrace the warm, considerably less free quality of security. Who needs freedom -- as long as the restriction of it makes us all feel better.

So, seemingly out of nowhere, the phrase "One nation under God," has been excised from our children's proscribed daily loyalty oath, and again (at least in the media) we are a nation divided. But it's nothing so simple two sides, one Pro-God and one Anti-God. The Pro-God forces are in themselves divided: you have your Christians who believe that the phrase is not a violation of the separation of church and state; you have Christians who think that there should be no such thing as the separation of church and state (some, the decedents of immigrants seeking refuge from religious persecution); and, most puzzlingly, you have a group of people who just want their kids to say the Pledge the same way that they had to.

The people against are diverse as well: Atheists, agnostics, some liberal Christians (who, probably because they realize that a Christian nation would not be in their material interest, believe in the "wall of fire" between religious and secular institutions), some Muslims, some Buddhists, and of course, Satanists.

It should be obvious that this is not a crucial battle for the future of our nation, played out as a titanic struggle of believers vs. non-believers. We know who already won. Read a dollar bill. Just because there are occasional skirmishes, instigated by those who've already been roundly defeated, doesn't mean that the war hasn't been won.

In the end, it really doesn't matter very much who winds up the victor when this issue gets up to the U.S. Supreme Court (actually, given the current set of Justices, you could safely bet a whole Presidential election on the God Squad coming out on top again). Any attempt to remove religion from the Government is doomed to failure, given the fact that our leaders are all very pious individuals. Most of them aren't simply observant; they often belong to Evangelical sects, who's primary goal is to spread the word. How are easy-going, let's live for today Atheists supposed to tackle that sort of entrenched dogma?

Atheists and Evangelical Christians (to pick just two of the players here) are as ideologically removed from each other as Palestinians and Jewish settlers. They're not after comprise when it comes to issues of governance. Atheists see theists of all stripes as somewhat misguided; Christians see Atheists as servants of the most evil motherfucker in the history of the universe. Atheists will deign to speak to a believer as condescendingly as possible; Christians are glad that you're going to Hell.

If the phrase, "Under God," is removed from the pledge -- so what? Between the invocations that occur before the opening of Congressional and Supreme Court sessions, the Presidential prayer breakfasts, and the holy words on our money and government documents, the loss of this one phrase from the daily loyalty test and pledge of indoctrination would amount to exactly bupkis. The only people who would be hurt by such a thing are our children; if "Under God" is removed from the pledge they've grown so accustomed to, they might actually think that there is some sort of seperation between Church and State, when, in fact, they are more intertwined than ever before.

-B. C. Silvia