Arkansas student refuses to stand up for the Pledge

An elementary school student in Arkansas has become the latest, in a long line of First Amendment heroes, who has refused to participate in his public school's Pledge of Allegiance ceremony.

Will Phillips is a fifth-grader who lives in West Fork, Arkansas. West Fork is located on Interstate 540 in the northwest corner of Arkansas, twenty miles east of Oklahoma and forty miles south of Missouri. Will, who wants to be a lawyer when he grows up, stated in this CNN video interview that he won't participate in the Pledge because there isn't liberty and justice for all in this country. He says that his family has many gay friends, and that laws which block them from marrying means that there isn't liberty and justice for them.

Will is right, of course. The Pledge of Allegiance combines a false, right-wing editorial, with an affirmation of patriotism.

The purpose that Congress had for injecting the editorial into the Pledge was to force those who recite the Pledge into publicly professing affirmation of right wing political ideology, and to falsely imply that those who do not embrace right-wing ideology are not patriotic.

The reality is precisely the opposite. The true patriots in this country are people like Will and me, who reject the efforts of the right-wing to use government ceremonies as a means for forcing people to embrace the right-wing's corrupt ideology, such as using government as a weapon to cram god down your throat.

It's ironic that this latest challenge to the Pledge is taking place in Arkansas. Article XIX, Section 1, of the Arkansas Constitution states that atheists are prohibited, by law, from ever holding a government job or testifying in court. How are we atheists supposed to attain justice, in Arkansas, when we aren't even allowed to testify in a court of law?

Will's right. I do the same thing (refuse to stand for the Pledge), and have since before Will was born. Thank you, Will.

For more background on this issue, see this story in the Arkansas Times.

Please e-mail a comment to me at rob@robsherman.com to let me know what you think, and I'll post your comments, below.

I look forward to your comments on this one. Do you still stand up for the Pledge? If so, when are you going to stop it?

Please tell your friends about this through your social media networks and word of mouth.

Send personal comments, comments unrelated to this story or notification of typos that you see in any of my posts to rob@robsherman.com.