Under God Divisive This file is an ANSI text version of This file is not necessarily an up to date reflection of the original. Thursday's comment by Ryan Larsen, Jefferson praised God, misses the point. Bellamy, the author of the pledge, never included under God, and protested at similar divisiveness when the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution changed the words "my flag" to "the flag of the United States of America." The point is that McCarthian divisiveness was as damaging in the '50s as now. Haven't we learned from that experience? It's ironic that he wanted to add "equality" (where under God now sits), but wasn't able to do so. Published in the 4 April 2004 Deseret News . This article was written in response to Jefferson praised God . Here is the Pledge of Allegiance as it was originally printed in the 8 September 1891 issue of The Youth's Companion: I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It is of note that: * Bellamy was unable to add the word "equality," as he originally intended, because of politics around women's liberation and African American equality * The Knights of Columbus, a conservative Roman Catholic organization, campaigned Congress to add "Under God," to the pledge, thus making it into a patriotic oath (instead of pledge) and a prayer. Copyright (c) 2004, 2007 by D. E. Evans Updated (GMT, UTC): $Id: ltepledge.txt,v 1.1 2007/06/24 22:52:35 sinuhe Exp $