Lawyer Charged With Contempt For Staying Silent During Pledge Of Allegiance (MS)

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



TUPELO, Miss. — When a Mississippi judge entered a courtroom and asked everyone to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, an attorney with a reputation for fighting free speech battles stayed silent as everyone else recited the patriotic oath. The lawyer was jailed.

Attorney Danny Lampley spent about five hours behind bars Wednesday before Judge Talmadge Littlejohn set him free so that the lawyer could work on another case. Lampley told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal he respected the judge but wasn't going to back down.

"I don't have to say it because I'm an American," Lampley told the newspaper.

The Supreme Court ruled nearly 70 years ago that schoolchildren couldn't be forced to say the pledge, a decision widely interpreted to mean no one could be required to recite the pledge. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/07/danny-lampley-arrested-pledge-of-allegiance_n_755074.html

[BadgerKid]

1. Wow, sounds like a My Cousin Vinnie moment. n/t

[NYC Liberal]

2. Oh the irony. "Liberty and justice for all" huh? nt

[rucky]

3. ...or else.

[inna]

4. the judge should be disbarred, imo.

[asjr]

5. With the name Talmadge that judge

must be from Georgia.

[wundermaus]

6. I refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance

When I was a high school student during the Viet Nam War and although I was threatened with expulsion, my homeroom teacher did not follow through with the threat.

The reason my teacher cited was eloquently expressed: In this free country, you have the moral right to dissent and that right is secured and protected by those that sacrificed and died in it's defense.

Being thrown in jail for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance is the ultimate act of hypocrisy.

[hayu_lol]

7. windermaus, When I learned the pledge...

we raised our arms just like the picture you furnished...and there was no phrase 'under god' in the pledge.

[bigmonkey]

8. In my homeroom in high school in the early 1970's we relented.

None of us wanted to stand and take the pledge, but it really upset the teacher. Somehow, as I remember it, we decided that one person would stand every day for everybody - we all took turns being that person. We did the "right hand on heart" gesture.

In retrospect, that isn't really very consistent with a protest stance, but at the time it felt like "all us kids" were trying to be sympathetic to an older person who was frightened by change. Somehow it placated her.

[wundermaus]

10. I would stand with my class out of respect...

for the ideals of our nation but would not put my hand on my hand over my heart nor would I say the words.
I worn a black arm band to school and was taunted by the jocks...
My father once had my older brother tackle me in the back yard and hold me down so he could shave off my "long" hair.

[bigmonkey]

11. People who weren't there don't remember the oppressive atmosphere.

Being told to leave stores just because you had "long" hair, or being polite to bigots and political monsters because you felt real potential danger if they found out what you really thought. Fred Hampton, a famous guy at the time, was shot to death by the police through the walls of his apartment while sleeping in his own bed, and there were no convictions for that obvious, practically public, murder.

The only advantage then was that at least you thought the bad guys were on their way out. And, realistically, they were and still are. The actual cultural atmosphere now is much more human, it's just that the remaining monsters have tightened their grip out of fear, and the civilization is twisted as a result. They're still losing. That tightening grip is a losing strategy in the long run, a demonstration that they are losing their hold. The only question, in my mind, is how much damage they'll do before they finally collapse. And, of course, when oh when will that day finally come.

[BurtWorm]

9. How many Americans know who brought the Pledge to the Supreme Court?

Wasn't it the Jehovah's Witnesses? It's against their principles (such as they are) to pledge an oath to something other God (or something like that).