H.R. 2389 passed the United States House of Representatives today by a margin of 260-167. The bill is intended to protect school children across this fair land from the horrid fate of being prevented from uttering the Pledge of Allegiance in their classrooms because it contains the phrase "Under God".
Quoting Jim Abrams from his Associated Press article "House OKs bill guarding Pledge from courts": Opponents said the legislation, which would bar federal courts from ruling on the constitutional validity of the pledge, would undercut judicial independence and would deny access to federal courts to religious minorities seeking to defend their rights.. . . . The pledge bill would deny jurisdiction to federal courts, and appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court, to decide questions pertaining to the interpretation or constitutionality of the pledge.
It is this element of the bill that is particularly frightening. How could the Congress possibly imagine it can pass a law that is not subject to judicial review? Schools may in theory be local institutions, but the reality is that federal funding has effectively nationalized all public education. The provision of the bill that would allow individual states to determine whether the Pledge passes local muster is purely cosmetic and not at all a viable solution in the real world. When little Johnny's parents move up the street from Bristol, Tennessee, to Bristol, Virginia, is he going to be tossed in jail the first day in his new school for inadvertently uttering the "G" word in front of his highly impressionable peers?
The world is becoming a truly frightening place when I am forced to admit that I wholeheartedly agree with Nancy Pelosi. Commenting on the bill she said, "We are making an all-out assault on the Constitution of the United States which, thank God, will fail."
If Pelosi is talking sense, can the men with the extra long sleeved white jacket be far behind?
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