Pennsylvania lawmaker wants state to honor addition of ‘under God’ to Pledge of Allegiance

A Pennsylvania legislator is sponsoring a bill to recognize the 60th anniversary of the addition of the phrase, “under God,” to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Rep. John McGinnis (R-Blair) wants the state to formally recognize the phrase being added to the pledge February 1954, or 12 years after the pledge was adopted by Congress and 62 years after it was written.

The bill notes that God was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence as the source of rights and liberty and that Pennsylvania also recognized God in its state constitution.

“On February 7, 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower came to the conviction that adding the words ‘under God’ to the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States would be the right ‘thing to do after hearing Reverend George Docherty preach that the phrase ‘nation under God, which was first used in the Gettysburg Address, was appropriate to be added to the Pledge of Allegiance because freedom ‘is defined by a fundamental belief in God,’” the bill says.

Congress voted to amend the pledge three days later, and McGinnis wants lawmakers to mark the Feb. 10 anniversary.

All and all when I saw this come up in my e-mail I thought nothing of it. I was like what's the big deal then I thought if it isn't a big deal why are they making a big deal out of it. Just seems like another push to mark this nation as a Christian nation. The more legislation they can push through like this then the more they can present the best evidence when it comes to something big.

I never had a problem saying the pledge with the word God in it. However my thoughts on the matter have gone back and forth from atheism to deism that sometimes depends on my mood in the day. For others it may be an issue but I cannot speak for them. I think this legislator needs to remember the founding fathers were Deists and the Constitution of the guard states was based off of the Magna Carta, English Bill of Rights, and many philosophers’ writings. Perhaps he needs to brush up on his history.
http://
Read more at The Raw Story

reply to post by Grimpachi


I'm (barely) in PA. Moved here a couple of years ago from parts westward where even what people would call "conservative" is just common sense "progressive". I am astounded at how bassackwards this state, nay, COMMONWEALTH is. Why would a person of a party of "less waste in politics" be wasting time (which is taxpayer dollars) with this when so much other legislation needs to be reviewed and voted on. And why can't I buy beer and wine in the same store? I can't even get a freaking six pack at the gas station! Not even a crappy one.

Maybe it should be amended to 'One Nation Under God' except for 9-11-2001, and Pearl Harbor Day, and Sandy and Katrina make landfall day, etc and so forth.

Cuz either the Christian God takes the occasional national nap and daily fade-outs even though tens of thousands of Christians are praying for individual favors in any given hour, or Allah, Zeus, Baal and sundry other Gods all have their days on duty.

Sorry for the heresy but I get sick and tired of grown adults not only perpetuating the Bronze Age fantasies, but brainwashing their children in order to produce yet another generation of wishful idiots thinking someone else is going to save them from themselves.

As long as we continue THIS, as well as all the other lies, nothing will change. Unless of course, God's Will is that the United States of America go down the drain as quickly as possible as a social experiment. Those Roman Gods lasted a lot longer than this one has, if you judge by the history of the 'chosen people' and their chosen god(s).

Has this guy ever heard of the First Amendment? As it says "the United States Constitution prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion". So he is SOL this would be against the Constitution.

And it wouldn't hurt for this guy to know that the words under God didn't appear in the speech until the final drafts.

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that “all men are created equal.”

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow, this ground – The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

reply to post by buster2010

It was the 100th anniversary of Gettysburg this year...park was closed when my parents came to visit. Government shutdown because of actions like those of the idiot aforementioned. Worried about a headline rather than a budget. How ironic.

The original verson by Francis Bellamy said nothing about any deity. 'Under God' was a later addition, much like many of the theistic references in our governmental homages.