House votes to put 'under God' in Texas pledge

[DuaneBidoux]

Source: Associated Press

AUSTIN — The Texas House voted early today to inject a little religion into the Texas pledge.

House lawmakers voted 124-5 to put the words "under God" in the Texas pledge of allegiance recited by thousands of school children every day. The change mirrors the national pledge, which has included "under God" since 1954.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4774748.html

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I never have understood why, if God is so powerful, we need to be coerced to invoke his name everywhere. Can't he do his own talking?

In Texas all kids are required to say the Texas pledge immediately following the American at the beginning of the day.

[IndianaGreen]

1. It was a rightwing Congress that put "Under GAWD" in what was a secular pledge

intended to bring us together. As it is, that stupid little "Under GAWD" crap is another reason to divide us.

[muntrv]

3. We won WWI and WWII without saying "Under GAWD." Go figure.

[IndianaGreen]

5. And we have been losing wars ever since!

Perhaps it is because "Under GAWD" is on the currency, which shows that Amerika's true GAWD is the Mighty Dollar.

I prefer the Flying Spaghetti Monster over Jay-Zeus!

[billyoc]

6. Wow, then we lost all the wars after they put it in. n/t

[muntrv]

2. It's because too many of the talibornagain are too lazy to get out of bed

on Sunday and go to church, so they need the government to breast feed them their religion.

[Eric J in MN]

9. Did you just make up "talibornagain"?

If not, where is it from?

[muntrv]

10. I've seen it used by other posters here at DU.

[jobycom]

4. That's the kind of legislation you pass when you know you've failed at everything else.

"Yes, voters, we fucked up your state beyond repair, but the real problem is that God is not in our Texas Pledge of Allegiance, so he is punishing us. Blame God, dear voters, not us. But we will fix that. We will chant God's name in the Pledge every morning, and then God will fix our state. And if he doesn't, fuck him, it's his fault."

[aquart]

7. Yeah, that'll keep the hurricanes away.

And the tornadoes.

[Eric J in MN]

8. There is an Invisible Man in the Sky hovering above Texas.

I know that's difficult to believe, but the new Texas pledge tells me so.

(sarcasm)

[muntrv]

11. If you look in your Bible, it'll say in plain English that on the 8th day,

Gawd created Texas.:crazy: :sarcasm:

[bigworld]

12. Text of the pledge FYI:

"Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible."

[hamsterjill]

31. Text of the pledge

I'm from Texas and every morning, this radio station plays a group of school children reciting the Texas pledge.

Invariably, the kids recite it as follows:

"Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to the (pronounced "thu") Texas, one and indivisible".

Makes me laugh every time!!!!

[silverweb]

13. A Texas pledge?

That's just obscene.

[THUNDER HANDS]

15. i don't get it either

Are kids pledging allegance to Texas? how does that go anyway?

"I pledge allegance, to the flag, of Texas..."

that's just dumb.

[DaHoot]

17. yep

I'm currently a senior in high school here and ever since kindergarden we've had to recite the Texas pledge. "Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas one and indivisable" fucking annoying. I think we're one of the few states that actually has a pledge but I'm not too sure on that.

[pop goes the weasel]

20. refuse and resist

I am a native Texan and I am very fond of my home state. But we never had to chant some rote, meaningless oath (with bad meter, to boot!) in order to inculcate state pride. Back in the day, we learned the state song so we could out-jingo our fellow Texans on appropriate occassions but otherwise kept such displays of local chauvinism in mothballs. Damn, I say, what you need is to be able to belt out "Texas Our Texas" during barbeques on March 3 and April 21, not mutter some committee-birthed monstrosity to prove your inability to defy pointless authority.

[YankeyMCC]

28. That's what struck me too

Do other States have their own pledges? I never heard of that.

[frylock]

14. are you ready to have a good war with iraq under god?

[Fresh_Start]

16. LOL. First they vote to take Bush off their state signs

then the vote to put God into their pledge.

Who the hell do they think they are kidding.
These are the fools that propelled Bush unto the national stage.
God was paying attention even when the fools in Texas were asleep.

The can add 'GOD' to their pledge. But God recognizes and despises hypocrisy especially hypocrisy in the name of God.

[Journeyman]

18. Undergod? Any relation to Underdog? . . .

[Art_from_Ark]

21. There's no need to fear...

UNDER-GOD is here!

[Nevernose]

19. In some ways, Texas is the greatest place on Earth

And in others, well, I'm usually surprised when I read a newspaper headline that doesn't contain the word "Texas" and the phrase "Witch Burnings" in conjunction.

The place is schizophrenic or MPD or something.

I left Texas while still in school, in '89. When did the Texas pledge start? I went to several school districts there, in several different regions, and even went back to college there. Nowhere did anyone, ever, recite the Texas pledge, even with three years of Texas history classes.

[trof]

22. I pledge allegiance to: U.S., Texas, Harris County, City of Houston, and

Fern Street.
:eyes:

[dysfunctional press]

23. it wasn't already there? what took the heathens so long to recognize their true master?

:eyes:

[maxrandb]

24. That will solve everything!

Good job. Shut down. We don't need the legislature anymore. God is on our side.

[Javaman]

25. we have to put it in...

so the social brainwashing of society can continue.

And we all know that only "real" religious people love to wear god on their sleeves. And to invoke the name of god every chance they get, just in case they forget.

[damntexdem]

26. They can put it in, but I won't say it.

For that matter, I won't pledge allegience to Texas, anyway.

The kids may be required, but they can be taught to lip synch.

[semillama]

27. What, it wasn't in there already??? n/t

[DFW]

29. For her high school semester abroad, my daughter went to Texas

No, wait, really!! She went to school in Germany all her
life until college. German schools encourage students to
take one or two semesters abroad, so my kid went "home"
to Texas. She attended a public school in Dallas, and they
never recited a pledge to the Texas flag, only the pledge
of allegiance as it is recited nationally. And check out her
reaction to that:

I had totally forgotten that they do that in public schools
in America (no such thing is done in Germany), so I never told
her about it. So after the first couple of days, I asked her how
she was getting along in the new/old country. She said school was OK
but they did do some weird stuff she wasn't prepared for. I said
like what? She said, well, for one thing, this ritual chanting they
do every morning.

Ritual chanting? In a Texas public school? What, had the place been taken
over by Buddhist monks or something? I told her, I could not imagine that
they did ritual chanting in a Texas public school. She assured me they did.
They all got up and started mumbling some ritual chant in unison. I just
couldn't believe it. I asked her just WHAT were they chanting? She said
they chanted something like "I spread the peaches."

?????????????????

I replied that I couldn't imagine that in a Texas public school, that the
teachers and kids got up every morning and did a unison chant of "I spread
the peaches." She said, well that's what it sounded like. I asked if they did
anything else that weird. She said that while they were chanting they all put
their hands on their chests. That's when I figured it out. I asked if by any
chance, they were saying "I pledge allegiance?" She said she had no idea, and
what did "pledge" and "allegiance" mean? I had taught her good conversational
English, but there was no reason for a kid growing up in Germany to use the
English words "pledge" or "allegiance" in everyday conversation, so she had
never heard them before. So she just re-arranged in her head the sounds she
was hearing into the English words she knew that most resembled what she was
hearing. The American kids, bored to death from having to chant this every
morning, only mumbled it as a boring, forced ritual in the first place, which
made it even harder for a kid raised in another language to comprehend.

Ergo: "I spread the peaches (to the flag)." She was just too shy to ask them what
the hell they were saying, or why in the world they were saying it.

Actually, I think it has a kind of catchy ring to it, don't you?

[superconnected]

30. pushing theocracy off on people...

I'm so fucking against this.

The country that has to say, "under God", is a theocracy.

[anotherdrew]

32. do they really think this will be enough to propitiate their angry sky god? n/t

[DFW]

33. The country that forces its children to say "under God"

Is one country that is so uptight that it can't even uphold
its own Constitution in the face of right wing political correctness.
The man who wrote the original pledge, a socialist minister, of all
people, did not include any reference to God, and objected vehemently
to any playing around with his original text.

I have always marveled at so-called "Christians" who only seem to
feel secure in their faith when they manage to force it upon others.
Sincere Christians I have known never felt a need to make others
conform to their beliefs, and see no reinforcement of their faith
b by adding references to it in our Pledge of Allegiance, or the
adding it to our money. This was first done, by the way, during the
Civil War, and not from the beginning, as some right wing extremists
claim. Adding it to all paper money wasn't even done until the 20th
century. If some of them had their way, it would appear on every
internet home page as well, as if that would somehow make them better
in the eyes of their God. They tend to overlook that in forcing it upon
others, it makes them bad Americans in the eyes of the framers of our
Constitution, but I guess a bunch of dead guys who wore sweaty wigs
in some un-air conditioned hall plotting a daring revolution in July, 1776
doesn't conform to their idea of "Americans." They must want sexless
religious piety that means TV evangelists every Sunday and football
every Monday night, or something like that.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

34. When did Texas become its own country?

[Robb]

37. When did it ever stop? nt

[callous taoboy]

35. We also have a "moment of silence" in the schools here, during

which I sometimes pretend with my class that I heard the principal, a wing-nut, say, "A moment of Simpsons," which is when I hit the play button on the CD player to play the Simpson' theme. I enjoy doing that more than I enjoy sex.

[Massachusetts]

36. Sounds like a good use of time and taxpayer $$$$$$

God will certainly be pleased and therefore will help all those children with the necessary reading, critical thinking and math skills they will require to make it. (sarcasm)

[Lone_Star_Dem]

38. I didn't even know before this that Texas had a pledge

Texas is in a dismal state and the legislators know it. This is their way of throwing a bone and hopefully an excuse that the reason wasn't their incompetence, but rather the states lack of god.