10-Year-Old Boy Says Pledge Of Allegiance Unfair to Gays, Won’t Stand For It
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Here’s a CNN video clip of Will Phillips, a 10-year-old boy in Arkansas who thinks gays should be able to marry.
He’s a passionate and articulate guy who invoked his First Amendment rights to take the stand that he did –(sheepishly admittedly suggesting, very politely, his teacher jump off a bridge for forcing him to conform.) He says he’s now the brunt of jokes at his school calling him a “gaywad.”
The Pledge of Allegiance, which every American schoolchild knows by heart, is something that gives those of us who grew up in other countries pause. Canadian schoolchildren don’t pledge allegiance to anyone or anything. They just start their school-day, whatever their feelings of patriotism. We’re never asked to say them aloud, nor forced to do so by peer pressure and social custom. As an adult, you decide what you believe and vote (or withold your vote) accordingly. I’ve always wondered why young American children are compelled to do this.
Is Will Phillips crazy? Unpatriotic? Brave?
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Actually, it is a practice of the religious society of friends (quakers) to refuse to say the pledge. My allegiance is to my understanding of god’s will as revealed to me by my conscience. Since that supersedes my allegiance to my country, it would be dishonest of me to say the pledge. That’s not to say that I don’t love my country, or agree with many of the good things it does for its citizens and people around the world. It definitely makes me squirm at public events to have to choose between honesty and patriotism.
I never thought about it as a kid, we just said it without even thinking about what we were saying. In the 60’s we started to question saying something like this; started to remind us more of the Hitler youth. My kids ask a lot of questions about it here and in the classroom. I thought the comment by “datajunkie” was excellent since most Americans are proud of the USA but many have started to ask why we need to pledge an allegiance to acountry we already love.