History of the Pledge of Allegiance.
1892
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1892 to 1923
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1923 to 1924
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1924 to 1954
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,and to the republic for which it stands; one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.”
1954 to Present
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
I remember the day I went to school and before we recited the pledge of allegiance the teacher explained to us that we had to add the words “under God” to the pledge this morning and where they were to be inserted.
I remember being troubled by this. The Pledge was the Pledge! I was only 9 years old but It didn’t seem right to me that it should be changed. But of course, as the information above shows, the words of the pledge have been changed many times. Before 1954 none of the changes to the wording of the pledge precluded any loyal American from repeating it. But the change in 1954 effectively proclaimed that to be a loyal American one had to also belief in God …. thus effectively declaring that atheist, agnostics, Buddhist, Shintoist, Hindus, … anyone but Christians, probably Jews, and maybe Muslims could not be loyal Americans.
Even some of the founding fathers would not in good consciousness have been able to say the Pledge of Allegiance as it was legally required to be repeated after 1954.
The change in the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954 was made by a conservative congress and a conservative president (Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House) in the wake of the McCarthy era. Proof that conservatives want to “get the Government off our backs” and to stop telling us what to do, how to do it, and what to believe. Right?