The Hartford Business Journal staff is required to cite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at work.
No, no, not that one. This is a pledge to the shadowy Cayman Islands holding company that owns the paper. We promise that we will never ask for raises, and that we forswear liberty and justice for all employees. There’s no First Amendment issue, because there is no mention of God, except for a reference to the publisher.
We’re used to it. We all began chanting that other pledge as kids in school — except for the home-schooled students, who only had to pledge that they would win almost all the state and national spelling bees.
As a marketing tool, the “pledge” recitation is of uncertain value as a means to confirm our unity as one nation under God or one newsroom under despotism.
The collectivism of the obligatory chant can be either unifying or numbing. At college and professional sporting events, some guys snatch off their hats; others don’t. Some do the hand-over-heart thing; others look around uncomfortably and fold their arms across their chests. Some bow their heads as if in prayer; others stare earnestly at the American Flag.
The pledge has not always been a unifying tool. Some of the early “pledge” requirements in public schools were specifically aimed at Jehovah’s Witnesses, who had religious objections to such stuff. A murky, confused U.S. Supreme Court tried twice to clarify, finally deciding on a 6-3 vote that it was none of the government’s damn business how, when, and if you agreed to pledge. As Justice Jackson put it, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
As with any popular sales tool, there is inevitably competition for the hearts and minds of consumers. The “Star-Spangled Banner” took over, in large part because, amid the hot dogs and beer, we’d rather shout out a tune about the rockets’ red glare than chant something along the lines of a prayer, with liberty and justice for all except newspaper columnists.
Congress officially recognized the Pledge of Allegiance in 1945, but except for many school settings and city council meetings, the patriotic song has won the day.
The more recent addition of “under God” to the pledge prompted a bit of recreational First Amendment litigation, but in Connecticut, our God — the University of Connecticut women’s basketball coach, Geno Auriemma — remains unchallenged. He suggested recently that the UConn athletic tradition since the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — reciting the pledge before each game; and having a soloist do all the hard work singing the Star-Spangled Banner — should be replaced by festive Star-Spangled Banner singing by us all, perhaps without the stuffy “pledge.”
This patriotism thing is a confusing business. As University of Hartford political science professor Michael Clancy wrote recently in the Hartford Courant, “Why do we reserve this exercise mainly for particular events of entertainment? We do not sing the anthem or recite the pledge before the start of an opera or a play.”
With the bedraggled Big East Conference engaged in a major recruitment drive to attract new schools and teams, including a chess team from a university in Bangladesh, and a football team from Boise, wherever that is, perhaps the song choice should be changed to “Joy to the World.”
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
