At the March 15 Lewiston City Council meeting, the recent School Committee vote around the Pledge of Allegiance was brought up. To be clear, the School Committee vote was about whether students needed a parent’s note to abstain from the pledge, nothing more.
It is already part of Maine statutes that students do not have to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance — it’s the law of the state. Furthermore, in 1943 the United States Supreme Court ruled students cannot be compelled to participate in the pledge.
People should think about that date for just a moment . . . during the middle of World War II, the interpreters of the Constitution made that ruling.
Compelling students to recite the pledge day after day does not make them good patriotic citizens, it turns them into drones or revolutionists. What kind of example are adults setting, who regularly avoid civic duties like serving jury duty, not voting and trying to get out of paying taxes?
Jimi Cutting, Lewiston
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