Taking a stand

[buzzycrumbhunger]

. . . or a sit. Hey, kid, you’d better make that pledge.

I always found it bizarre/creepy for elementary school kids to be forced to take a daily oath of fealty, but it never occurred to me to rebel beyond just not speaking when we were forced to stand. Kind of heart-warming to see a kid thinking this hard already at age 10:

There’s a 10-year-old lad, a fifth-grader at West Fork Elementary, who decided he wasn’t going to say the Pledge of Allegiance at school anymore because there was no liberty or justice for all in America, as the pledge’s rote recitation asserts.

He’d concluded that gay people didn’t get equal justice or liberty in this country and that he was loath to mouth something suggesting they did.

That is to say the boy was thoughtful, sensitive, courageous and free.

So his class had a substitute teacher who bugged the boy for not standing. She told him he ought to get up and say the pledge.

The youngster didn’t care for being nagged, and he snapped. He told the substitute teacher to go jump off a bridge.

Then the substitute teacher sent him to the office where the principal did not coerce or punish him in regard to the pledge, but did assign him, on account of his sassing the teacher, to do a report on the history of the pledge and the symbolism of the flag.

Let me help the youngster.

<snip>

Rather than pledge allegiance to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, he might say, “I offer my voluntary loving support for my free country and the republic for which this flag stands.”

Rather than say “one nation under God, indivisible,” he could say, “one nation, not subject to anyone’s forced religion, and where the right-wing Texas governor was free even to intimate his state’s secession.”

Rather than say “with liberty and justice for all,” he could say, “with liberty and justice for many people, but, sadly as yet, not gays or lesbians.”

That ought to satisfy everybody.

[Delphinus]

1. Oh, my!

What a brilliant piece - and to be so smart at 10 years old. This is great!

[buzzycrumbhunger]

2. I thought so, too!

Kind of makes you think there's hope for us after all, doesn't it? :)