What Ron Rosenbaum said:
The pledge is a kind of forced confession of orthodoxy. No, not water-boarding, but coercion nonetheless. Especially for peer-group-pressured school kids. Even if they have the right to opt out. In past school-prayer cases, the court has resisted the idea that the state should be implicated in even the social coercion or propagation of religion.
Busybody school boards and bombastic anthem peddlers at ball games should let people find their way to allegiance in their own fashion rather than making “allegiance” an implement of state power used to extract oaths.
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