Hey, Dan...

I'd begun to wonder if everyone has gone nuts. Thank you for explaning your position more thoroughly.

And alcaray -- thank you for goading him into it. ;)

Let the record show that the Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, then vice-president of the Society of Christian Socialists (his oeuvre included the speech "Jesus the Socialist"), to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing in America.

I found it very interesting that the posture of those pledging allegiance was gradually changed in the 1940s because it resembled the Nazi salute, and became the hand over heart posture that we now assume. This too is a form of political correctness, but we don't mind it because it comes to us as tradition.

History is important. When my children learned the Gettysburg Address, they learned about what occasioned its delivery, and a little about its author. When they learned about the various components of the Bill of Rights -- Holy Writ in my house -- they learned the context in which the amendments were written and adopted. If the Pledge is going to be a learned part of the curriculum, I want it learned in the context of its writing and the reasons it has evolved into the form that is currently prevelant, not just as a pointless exercise in recitation, the way I learned it and the way it's still taught today.

Best regards--
Mary Anne