George,

What is being overlooked in so many of the commentaries, editorial and otherwise, is that in 1954 the U.S. government told the American people how to describe their relation to a deity. If we are "one nation under God," what does that mean?

Does this express a fact or is it an opinion? Even though it seems to have been adapted by a goodly portion of the American people, whose opinion was it in the first place? If you know the history of the Pledge you know that it was an opinion of the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus, who mounted a campaign in the early 1950's to have it inserted into the Pledge.

President Dwight Eisenhower's speech inaugurating the change makes Justice William J. Brennan's "ceremonial deism" laughable.

Kenneth H. (Ken) Bonnell (Khbonnell@aol.com) (electronic mail, March 7, 2003)