The Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton School Board voted to allow students to sit out the Pledge of Allegiance. (In-Forum: D-G-F Amends Pledge POlicy - Students Can Sit).
However, the article still expresses the debate in terms of those who think that students should stand and show respect for the flag and those who fought to defend their freedoms, versus those who think that students have a right to sit and show contempt for the flag and those who defend our freedoms.
Nowhere is there a hint of the fact that the Pledge itself shows disrespect for many of the people who have fought for our freedoms, or the fact that the Pledge links patriotism with belief in God (thus linking the lack of belief in God with a lack of patriotism).
The article literally screams that a patriot would stand and say the Pledge, and that no patriot could object to this practice.
Which, as I have been arguing, is exactly wrong.
Meanwhile, the North Hampton Zoning Board will have its next meeting on Tuesday, June 24th. As the article announcing the meeting reports (Seacoastonline: Around the Town)
This is the ZBA's first meeting since controversy followed a board member's decision not to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance nor to recite the pledge. Robert Field Jr. said he did so because he doesn't feel reciting the pledge is appropriate for the ZBA, which sits in judgment of other people's business, as in a courtroom.
The mere fact that this is considered news shows that there is coercion in this society to say the Pledge of Allegiance - and that a large number of people use the pledge to make judgements of others.
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