The trouble I had as a very young child with the Pledge of Allegiance was not with the currently disputed language about a divinity, but with making a solemn pledge or taking an fervent oath to  “The Flag” itself.  That always, as the words poured out of my mouth, struck me as a form of the most primitive animism.  And it seemed equally comparable to the ritual of praying to stone statues which, as a child, by my religion, I was also trained to due. 

So as we stood there as diligent children promising The Flag that we would honor It, I used to imagine that It would magically start to undulate under Its own power, or burst into flames like a Burning Bush, or begin to drip with the blood of fallen patriots.  After all, I was pledging, praying, swearing blood-oath-to-the-death to a holy and untouchable fabric.  I pledge allegiance to you, Flag!  Flag!  A word almost as powerfully evocable as “God” Himself!  Flag-damnit!  May the Flag strike you dead!  That was magic.  And like primitive islanders who, when honoring the island volcano, wait for it to speak to them, so I waited for The Flag to do something, hey, even just wave to me!  

In time, as I grew wiser and animism ceased in my mind to serve as a competent explanation for the full spirituality of life, I stopped praying to statues and stopped pledging to flags.  Which doesn’t mean I stopped praying or pledging—I just stopped investing such deep spiritual commitment in “inanimate things” and redirected it towards loftier constructions.  I started pledging only to “the Republic”  leaving the “to the flag” animistic revelry to die a dusty unspoken death in my brain.

So for me, the current “divinity controversy” is neither politically correct or incorrect, merely politically inept.  Like the Capulets and Montagues, a curse on both your houses!   After all, what kind of “God” can you be “under”—or not—if you are still giving prior sacred oath to relic-quality cloth Flag-essence itself?  Don’t get me wrong.  I’d die for my country.  And I’ve flown the flag on my truck post 9-11 with the throngs.  But I don’t want to sacredly swear to it and I’d never die for the flag.  I refuse to die for an animistically-infused symbol.  (The only exception of late being when I almost died for the flag while it was serving as the design on the thong of a deadly blonde who was doing what she did best in a tiddy bar). 

Oh—I know:  You’re going to tell me that many a true patriot died for the flag in the country’s defense.   Well, if they really died for the flag and not rather really in defending their country-bound way of life, they were fools.  Remember the proverbial flag-bearers marching into war on the battlefield, and if the bearer fell, another would come along to raise the flag, and if he fell, yet another after him, etc. ?  Well, do you think they do that anymore?  Hell no.   And why not?  Because a soldier is too valuable to waste on a mere symbol. 

“You bled with Wallace . . . now bleed with me.”  Thus ends the movie Braveheart with the ultimate call to battle: Freedom!  I’d rather go into battle with two swords—one in each hand—than with a pole with cloth attached and batteries not included.