Texas Schools Have a Riddle to Deal With

I frequently have to explain Texas’ lovable little idiosyncrasies to my friends who do not live in the Lone Star State. The reciting of our separate state pledge in addition to the Pledge of Allegiance leaves everyone scratching their heads in bewilderment.

Like so many of my Texas public school classmates, I mumbled my way through those words. I was eager just to get that event over with and go on with my day. Even accounting for the ten-year gap, I’m sure that many of today’s student reactions aren’t much different.

Not convinced of this, State Representative Debbie Riddle (Houston R) made it her personal mission to ensure that Texas school kids recite an even longer pledge. The phrase ‘one state under God’ was added to the morning ritual. On top of the moment of silence required as of 2003, another potentially divisive legal issue was created for public schools.

Representative Riddle no doubt drew her inspiration from the national pledge, the text of which carries the phrase 'one nation under God'. However, the context of that insertion was America in the 1950’s. And we’re not talking the version which starred Henry Winkler and Ron Howard. The phrase was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance as an attempt to appease Senator Joe McCarthy after a successful nationwide write-in campaign from the Knights of Columbus. Because Communists were uniformly thought to oppose religion, that move attempted to keep America staunchly anti-communist. Paradoxically, it had nothing to do with affirming the place of religion in government, as several contemporary promoters imply. It was merely the end result of a very slick political campaign. Incidentally, the adversary in that campaign no longer constitutes a credible political threat to the United States!

McCarthy certainly was a passionate man who sincerely believed in his cause. But attempting to conceal the pledge’s contemporary history still cannot negate that history: Joe McCarthy was also a very troubled man. His witch hunt destroyed numerous careers based on mere hearsay. Morality rejects such ‘values’!

The addition of the phrase certainly did not reflect the constitutional framers' original intent either. Having lived in societies which required religious loyalty tests of office holders and citizens, they were wary of state-sponsored religion. Certainly religious, they also believed that state and religion worked best when each were confined to their separate spheres. These public oaths appear to be code for that same theocracy which Jefferson spoke so eloquently against.