Per Waveflux at Shakespeare’s Sister (who got it from Atrios) I learn that the normally wonderful Senator Barak Obama is courting the Evangelical vote.
The money quote:
“It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase `under God,'” he said.
Dear Senator Obama:
You don’t know fuck-all about what children feel. Just don’t. Turns out children are sophisticated and intelligent and capable of noticing all sorts of nuance for which you are apparently unwilling to credit them.
Secondly, it’s not about feeling oppressed. We don’t determine Constitutionality or civil liberties based on feeling. Women didn’t have to feel oppressed when they lacked the right to vote in order to deserve that right. Blacks don’t have to feel disenfranchised in order to need the Voting Rights Act. Fuck you and your patronizing and purposely distracting talk about feelings. Just fuck you.
And in response to those who suggest that “under God” is not specific to a religion, and is just generic, allow me to add that “God” is specific to monotheism. I don’t worship “God,” I worship Gods and Goddesses. “Under” is also a non-generic term, locating “God” in a “heaven” or other world above. The U.S. is not one nation under Gaia, for instance, but one nation all over the top of Gaia, sort of left-breastish.
