A funny thing happened on the way to political correctness

By Jim Killebrew

[April 23, 2014]  Political correctness is everywhere. When 13 people are killed and 22 people injured by a shooter on a rampage on behalf of radical Muslim jihadist behavior perpetrated by a major in Fort Hood, Texas, and this can be termed "workplace violence" rather than terrorism, political correctness has run rampant. When four Americans, including an ambassador, can be killed by Islamic attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and the president and secretary of state credit the terrorist act to a YouTube video when they knew at the time the terrorist act was indeed a terrorist act, we know that political correctness has run rampant.

Now, we have yet another example of political correctness, in New Jersey. It seems the children in a school at the Matawan-Aberdeen Regional School District practice saying the Pledge of Allegiance each day as the state law in New Jersey requires. However, it seems that some politically incorrect person or group of people decided back in the Dwight Eisenhower administration in 1954 to add two words to the Pledge of Allegiance that have now been found to destroy the patriotism of certain children who recite the pledge.

A national humanist group has brought a lawsuit against the school, alleging that a family with children in that school is being discriminated against because their children are atheists, and the words "under God" are discriminatory against them and all other atheist children. The American Humanist Association is an advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., and on behalf of the family in question has filed a suit in a state court demanding the words "under God" be stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance.

The American Humanist Association maintains the words added have "marginalized atheist and humanist kids as something less than ideal patriots." In fact, the atheist organization insists that those two words bring the state and school district in direct violation of the state's constitutional right to equal protection. The organization's attorney stated that the schools should not allow the pledge with such egregious words in them because it constitutes an exercise that "teaches students that patriotism is tied to a belief in God." The attorney continued: "Such a daily exercise portrays atheist and humanist children as second-class citizens, and certainly contributes to anti-atheist prejudices."

Of course, the attorney speaking for the school district stated that even though the state law requires the pledge to be recited daily, individual students may choose not to participate if they so wish. The school district attorney stated, "The district is merely following a state law that requires schools to have a daily recitation of the pledge." He continued, "We are disappointed that this national organization has targeted Matawan-Aberdeen for merely obeying the law as it stands."

This is such an interesting play on the political correctness and the absurdity of trying to turn around a decades-old practice to suit the preferences of those who do not believe in God.

Just for fun, let's say that the atheist group is right and their being offended by the utterance of the two words "under God" somehow makes their atheist children less patriotic. If the court decides to "feel their pain" and decree that the two words be stricken from the pledge, by logic wouldn't the same offense be perpetrated against those children who have been practicing those words each day? So the American Humanist Association has no qualms about foisting that same offensive practice of saying the pledge without the two words that have been spoken by students of at least four generations during the past several decades? By having the pain of discrimination lifted from their shoulders, they, in turn, would have the courts plant that same pain of discrimination on the shoulders of the many more tens of thousands of people who do believe in the words "under God"?

Would the American Humanist Association, as they express their "humanism," which in no way resembles "humanitarianism," provide the same courteous gesture to those who believe the words to stand up and say them, even as those atheist children chose to sit down and not recite them? If so, then how is that any different than what is taking place presently when the majority of children who believe the words recite it, while the atheist children may sit through it and not recite the pledge?

When will we all, as a group of Americans, come to realize that this thing we call political correctness is not only discrimination against another group, but it establishes a double standard of operation that is more often than not a discrimination against the majority of people holding the disputed belief?

[By JIM KILLEBREW]