Francis Bellamy was a Protestant minister and self-described democratic socialist. The original pledge was written for the 1892 three-hundredth anniversary of Columbus coming to America, and did not contain any reference to god.
The phrase “under god” was not added until 1955, 63 years later in response to a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, during the 1950’s Red Scare of McCarthyism.
The words were added by an act of Congress, in direction violation of the First Amendment. For the United States to add a reference about god — a religious reference — to something that had already existed 63 years without it, was an “establishment of religion” in violation of the Constitution. No “originalist” or “constitutionalist” with the slightest shred of intellectual consistency could interpret it any other way, and for them to do so is an admission of their utter hypocrisy.
Francis Bellamy was a Protestant minister and self-described democratic socialist. The original pledge was written for the 1892 three-hundredth anniversary of Columbus coming to America, and did not contain any reference to god.
The phrase “under god” was not added until 1955, 63 years later in response to a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization, during the 1950’s Red Scare of McCarthyism.
The words were added by an act of Congress, in direction violation of the First Amendment. For the United States to add a reference about god — a religious reference — to something that had already existed 63 years without it, was an “establishment of religion” in violation of the Constitution. No “originalist” or “constitutionalist” with the slightest shred of intellectual consistency could interpret it any other way, and for them to do so is an admission of their utter hypocrisy.