…Is it really a good thing if this court decision is overturned? Any time you find yourself in agreement with more than 400 Congressmen and the majority of the major media, you better double-check your premises.

Jim Babka, Pesident of American Liberty Foundation

I received this commentary by Jim Babka in my e-mail today in the Separation of School and State newsletter. I wasn’t able to find it published anywhere on the internet, so I’m including the entire letter here.

Should Christians Be Upset by Judges’ Decision on the Pledge of Allegiance?

By Jim Babka

You must be living under a rock if you haven’t heard the news. Two federal judges said that mentioning God in the Pledge of Allegiance violated the First Amendment rights of second graders. The Rev. Jerry Falwell called them “pin-heads” He also called them “Dumb and Dumber” — of course he meant that with love.

Something must be wrong with me. The news didn’t shock me, surprise me, worry me, anger me, or cause me to cry. I’m wondering why it caused such a stir?

• The ruling of the three-judge panel, according to legal experts left and right, is almost guaranteed to be overturned — either by a full panel from their circuit court or the Supreme Court.
• If you were worried that the media had become “Godless,” yesterday’s coverage should’ve set your mind at ease. All the national TV news-show hosts and all but two of their professional guests decried or mocked the decision.
• And in a display of tremendous political courage, Congress convened on the steps of the Capitol to recite the pledge and members stepped up to the microphones to tell the media how outraged they were.

So what’s the problem? It sounds like it’s already solved.

But is it really a good thing if this court decision is overturned? Any time you find yourself in agreement with more than 400 Congressmen and the majority of the major media, you better double-check your premises.

In 1962, the Supreme Court told public schools that prayer was banned. Since then, indignant Christians have fought for a Constitutional Amendment and through the courts to restore that right. Forty years later, they have little to show for those efforts.

Right around the same time, parochial schools experienced a renaissance. Christian schools sprung up like weeds all over the countryside. If the schools were going to separate God from their kids, then these responsible parents were going to separate their children from the government schools.

I’m a product of that movement. My parents made the decision to switch me from a public to a Christian school in 3rd grade — I’m glad they did. Now I’m a home-schooling parent, because I believe my children’s education is my responsibility.

Please understand that even the big-government liberals (in Congress and the media) don’t like this decision because they believed it was too bold — too much ado over a very little innocuous thing. The decision was overreaching and it could’ve sounded a well-overdue second alarm for those few Christian parents who’ve refused to accept the truth up to this point — education and “religion” (for lack of a better term), cannot be separated. This decision could’ve added the necessary fuel to the fire needed to Separate School and State.

Joseph Farah, publisher of WorldNetDaily put it this way, “If responsible Christian and Jewish parents did this [took their children out of government schools] all over America tomorrow, it would set off a revolution in this country. Gone would be the multi-billion-dollar Department of Education boondoggle. Gone would be the condom education. Gone would be the sexual propaganda and the moral relativism. No way tens of millions of parents are going to continue to be soaked in taxes for schools they don’t use. Not only will your children be liberated, the whole country would be… It will be like the collapse of the Soviet Union — hundreds of millions of people freed overnight.”

Instead, the decision will be overturned, victory will be declared, and those Christian parents who insist on deluding themselves about the wonders of public education will remain where they are.

The government education factory will continue to teach those children all kinds of things that are alien to most Christian values in areas like the origin of man, sexuality, and especially the environment — but they’ll say the Pledge of Allegiance correctly!

Government schools will continue to endorse pantheism, teach secular humanism, and instruct students in post-modern thinking, even going so far as to directly challenge them to question the things their parents and churches teach them… And then they’ll pass them to the fifth grade.

Studies indicate that 94% of the country believes there’s a God, 84% believe in Jesus Christ, and 80% support voluntary prayer in school. Is it reasonable for Christian’s to expect any higher numbers? Do Christians need to continue fighting for 40 more years to make government schools right, or should they learn their lesson and withdraw their support?

Besides, in this case, what’s there to fight for? Now, I know for some I’m about to engage in great sacrilege — but what’s so great about the Pledge of Allegiance anyway?

Who else, but to God do we, as Christians, owe allegiance? Should we swear allegiance to a plot of land or the state that controls it (Exodus 20:3-5, Matthew 5:33-35)? (In our country, doesn’t the state owe its allegiance to the people, rather than the other way around?)

The pledge was created in 1892 by a socialist named Francis Bellamy as a way to begin indoctrination of children into utopian ways. At the time, Bellamy was a high-ranking official in the National Education Association (NEA) who had recently been forced from his pulpit as a Baptist minister.

The words that caused all the controversy — “under God” — weren’t in Bellamy’s original. They were added by Congress in 1954 to provide contrast between the United States and “godless communism.” Bellamy’s granddaughter said he would’ve resented the change.

And in the post-decision analysis Wednesday, constitutional scholars like Douglas Kmiec, Jonathan Turley, and others indicated that the Pledge didn’t establish, “any particular religion.” Rather, they advised, it upheld the tradition that we believe in some kind of a national “deity.” That’s the bold constitutional argument that will likely be used to “restore” the pledge if this case makes it to the Supreme Court (sarcasm intended).

If “under God” is retained in the Pledge, will that really be much of a victory? If it makes 400 Congressmen and the media happy, it’s probably not such a great thing. The need to separate school and state, the history and purpose of the pledge, and the lameness of the constitutional argument, lead me to believe that retaining those words is not only not worth a fight, but it’s also, ultimately, a loss.

Jim Babka is president of American Liberty Foundation who wishes it noted that these are his opinions only.