Pledge of Allegiance plan not needed in state budget

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12:52 PM Monday, June 15, 2009

Did we miss an important announcement? Have school boards around Ohio been ordering the Pledge of Allegiance banned from classrooms? You say that one school district has done that?

Well, one school board — in Oberlin, Ohio — hardly constitutes a revolution. So why has state Sen. Gary Cates, a Republican from Butler County, introduced an amendment to the pending state budget to take away that discretion from local school boards?

Could it be that Cates and other Republican lawmakers are resorting again to hot-button politics — introducing meaningless, feel-good legislation that panders to some constituents while doing little to actually address Ohio’s pressing problems? Looks that way to us.

Under the amendment, local school boards would lose the authority to adopt policies restricting the recitation of the pledge and teachers would decide if students in their classrooms will say the pledge, according to the Associated Press. The amendment also allows that individual students still have the right not to recite the pledge but forbids adding or removing words from the pledge.

Predictably (and thankfully), the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio is challenging the amendment and calling on other lawmakers to drop it.

“This is a transparent attempt to force all school districts into mandating the pledge to be recited in all classrooms,” said ACLU of Ohio executive director Christine Link. “Local school districts know their communities best and should be permitted to make decisions that they feel are consistent with those they represent.”

Of course, if the amendment is scrapped (as it should be), we doubt there will be a stampede of school boards intent on banning the Pledge of Allegiance. Even if that did occur, local voters can oust school board members with whom they disagree. That’s how our system works — and presumably that’s what will happen in Oberlin if enough voters do not like that school board’s policy of not having students say the pledge during the school day.

Americans don’t need patriotism rammed down our throats, Sen. Cates. We’re perfectly capable of making that choice. After all, freedom of choice is an essential component of a democracy.

“The Ohio General Assembly should not be in the business of dictating what people may or may not say and how they may choose to recite the pledge,” Link added. We agree.

In a recent blog, the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer’s Thomas Suddes put the issue in better perspective: “... About 608,000 Ohioans were out of work in April. So GOP senators decided ... that the budget should let teachers require recitation of the Pledge of the Allegiance even if a school district tries to prevent that. ... There’s nothing unworthy about a pro-pledge law. But is recitation or non-recitation really Ohio’s biggest problem today?”

Lawmakers should pledge to stop trying to micromanage local governments and to stop such shameless pandering. Strike that amendment, lawmakers, and get back to addressing the state’s massive budget deficit and rising unemployment rate. Local school boards can manage this fabricated controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance without your help.

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