Boy shuns Pledge of Allegiance for Gay Rights

StoryBasically, a smart kid (skipped the 4th grade), has decided that he will not stand and recite the pledge of allegiance in school until gay people can get married.Will Phillips says that he cannot recite "liberty and justice for all" while there is obviously not liberty and justice for all.At first I thought this was more parents getting their kid to forward their own ideals. But I don't think that anymore after listening to this kid. He obviously is old enough to think for himself and represent his own ideals.Personally, I hope this "trend" catches on and kids across the nation band together to refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance until there actually is liberty and justice for all. It's sad that I have to refer to "standing up for liberty and justice for all" as a fad or trend...It doesn't matter if "marriage" is defined as being between a man and a woman. If so, then in order to have liberty for all, that definition must change. The facts are that gay couples do not have the following liberties:-having BOTH of them be recognized as legal guardians of their children in all states
-having all other rights of one parent being passed onto the other parent in case of death/sickness/whatever
-being allowed to visit their chosen partner in hospitals
-being allowed to serve in the military without having to hide anything about their personal lives
-not being treated as 'lesser' or 'unequal' to anyone who actually is "married"Basically, they should be allowed to get married and have the right to adopt without needing to create some silly "the same but different" terminology.Edited by Stile, : Added "for Gay Rights" to title to make it more clear

Hi Stile,Nice story. I love the father's proud expression throughout the clip. "Look at my boy! He's on CNN! I'm so proud!". I like this kid. He won't stand up, put his hand on his heart and recite a pledge that he considers to be a lie. That shows real character, especially from a ten year old. Whether you agree with his views or not (and I most certainly do) you have to admire his taking a stand.Mutate and Survive

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"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Very smart, yes.I was expecting a bit more traffic on this topic being all political and gay rights and all.Perhaps I should have gone with my first instinct and just placed this in the News forum. Ah well, sometimes you just miss

It also shows that minors are capable of making rational descisions
contrary to the belief of many. It just shows that age is not a factor in rationality. I have seen many adults with not as much sense.Edited by bluescat48, : sp.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

I support anyone's right not to recite the pledge of allegiance for any and all reasons. For me personally, I will state allegiance to the United States because of its ideals and standards.I am fully aware that this nation has in several instances been hypocritical of its own values. For me personally, it is important to stand up for the ideal, as this boy has done, to make "a more perfect Union."I think compulsory pledge of allegiances is unAmerican. That should be a personal decision that come's from the heart, not state-mandated indoctrination. I for one believe that homosexuals should be afforded the same rights as heterosexuals. The problem is, what "rights" are actually afforded in the Constitution? "Liberty" is subjective to who states what the entailments of liberty should be defined as, and "all" could be inclusive to children too. Marriage has always been a religious institution which should be free from the intrusion of government. In that sense, it should not be up to anyone but the people involved to decide whether or not they are married.For reasons of legality and indemnity, I propose that all secular people, whether homosexual or heterosexual, be recognized by civil union.It is not the right of the government to impose its will on a religion if that religion states that homosexuals cannot marry. It is equally unjust to suppose that a religion get to dictate whether or not people can be legally unified and protected.This is where that wall should be erected to keep the State and Religion from infringing upon each other, which clearly is the case in this instance. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Careful saying that on this thread, as you walk right in to the argument that marriage should not be limited to only consenting adults but that minors should be able to control their own sexuality.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

That's obviously not true. You can, right now, have a fully secular wedding at your local county clerk's office. Marriage is a government institution, as much as it is a religious one.Marriage isn't only for religious people, you know. This is true as well, however. Equal treatment requires the law to disregard gender, race, creed, or nationality when entering into contracts. All that matters is that the signatories are consenting adults. That won't fly. Non-religious individuals still want to be able to be married as well. Those who are already married will take such a move as an invalidation of their marriage - it will validate all of their fears that "the gays" are trying to ruin marriage for everybody. Quite frankly, this will never ever happen.It's true that equal treatment requires that either everybody can get married or nobody can, but the latter is simply impossible to do.Simply allowing homosexual marriage is the easiestand least intrusive option society can take. The current existence of gay marriage (and I just found out a lesbian friend of mine is engaged, yay) will prove conclusively that the "sanctity" of marriage is not damaged in any way by simply allowing more people to join in matrimony.Trying to completely get the state out of the marriage business will add fuel to those fears. It's a legal solution, but a social disaster.

While I agree that everybody should be able to marry (and in my country, gays can). I personally don't see problem to the following solution:Make every marriage a "civil union", and allow churches to "marry" people, but don't give the church marriages any legal status. Meaning that people who want to get married can (in a church, this will probably exclude gays), and gays and straight people can both get "civil unions", where they get the legal status of what is now a marriage. Are people really that retarded to protest because it just has a different name?By the way, this is kinda how it works in my country. Church marriages have no legal status whatsoever, in fact, you can't get married by a church unless you first get married by law. It's just called marriage all around.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

Historically marriage is a religious institution that governments piggy-backed on to give couples rights. The two should be separate. I am aware of that, which is why I propose civil unions for all secular people. Agreed. That's only because of what it means symbolically -- which is a union between two people. But the implications have always been that it is a union under God. I don't want that. I want a declaration between my wife and I that we are joined as a single unit. But it has nothing to do with "gays." My proposal simply seeks to erect a wall between Church and State. No, probably not... I'm simply expressing ideas. I don't believe that it is right that a Christian society be demanded that they have to forsake their roots and their time-honored beliefs to cater to the whims of a minority when it is expressly prohibited. At the same time, I don't think it is right for a single religion to demand on the entirety of ALL of society that we adhere to THEIR beliefs and superstitions. Secular individuals, both gay and straight, should have their own ceremonies and their own legal indemnities in place.Get the government out of religion, and get religion out of the government. The two are incompatible.This is my proposition in true spirit of the Establishment Clause, that Church and State be protected by and separate of each other. That in my opinion is the epitome of what it is all about.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

Precisely!

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

I think a better solution would be to hold a referendum which would give a choice between marriage for all or civil union for all(civil union would replace marriage at the state level). This way, we are sure people will have what they want while at the same time not having discrimination.

Whoa, hold your horses there. What?!"Christian society" is not being required to do anything. They're allowed to continue to have whatever opinion of homosexuality they've had in the past. They can consider them abomnations, or decent people, or jsut not care at all."Christian society" doesn;t have to start marrying gays in their churches - the governemtn has never been able to decide church doctrine. They don;t even have to recognize, from the perspective of the church, a gay marriage as valid before their chosen deity. Christians are not in any way being told to forsake anything or abandon any beliefs to cater to anyone else.This is about legal marriage, which has existed separately from religious marriage since we started using a certificate to make the practice recognized by the state. They use the same word, and mean much the same thing both secularly and religiously, but a Christian marriage is not a Jewish marriage is not a Muslim marriage is not a Hindu marriage is not an Atheist marriage is not a New Age marriage is not a Wiccan marriage is not a...you get the point. All of these groups, and may more, recognize their own traditions of marriage. Hell, even the term "Christian" is not a homogenous monolith of terminology - marriage traditions vary greatly between different denominations.Many Christians, after all, support gay marriage. In fact, given the statistical split and the religious demographics of the country, it must be the case that most supporters of ay marriage are themselves Christian.Does the legalization of divorce require Catholics to abandon their "roots and time-honored beliefs?" Does it damage the "sanctity" of marriage? Isn't marriage supposed to be "until death do us part?"Christians are just fucking fine with changing marriage as long as it conveneinces them. It's been changed constantly for centuries. But as soon as gay people want to be married and want to express the same level of commitment and love for each other while demanding absolutely nothign whatsoever from religious institutions, that's somehow going to destroy America and infect our kids with gayness and offend YHWH or Krishna or Allah or Jesus or whoever. And yet the word "marriage" does not have to be taken away from the secular. If I get married, I want to be married. I don't want a civil union and a partner - I want a fucking wife.I imagine that gay couples, by and large, feel the same way. And I agree compeltely - except that I don't think that separating church and state required abandoning "marriage" as a secular concept.The Christians don't have a monopoly on that word, and never have.Hindus get married. Jews get married. Muslims get married. Atheists get married. Agnostics get married. Deists get married. Wiccans get married. Jehovah's Witnesses get married. Mormons get married. Scientologists get married. Catholics get married.If the word is used so universally, and has so little to do with the trraditions of an individual religion, why would we ever want to change the definition so that only religious institutions get to use it? Should we make separate secular words for other shared practices? Should we change the name of Christmas to "Santa-day" for seculars and the state? Should we do away with Thanksgiving because of it's Puritan history and replace it with "Turkey Day?" How about Easter? That's another Christian tradition...Should we make it Bunny Day?The fact is that the word "marriage" has meaning for everyone. there is absolutely no rational justification for making "marriage" a religious-only institution while using secular civil unions when there is functionally nothing different at all.

Because anything less would be discrimination. That way whoever wants to marry by traditional values may do so, and those who still want to publicly declare their love for another individual while having the same protected status, may do so with a civil union.

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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." --John Adams

But I don't really see what you are arguing regarding my post. I'm proposing the referendum solution in case the majority would oppose having their civil marriage requalified as civil union.

First of all, really? What does it matter what you call her. You can still call her your wife. You can call her you bitch (not thtat I recommend that, nor approve of it), your spouse, your better half, or whatever else you just happen to come up with. Why would you have to be married to call her your wife? It doesn't even mean the same to me. It's completely the same as a civil union as far as I am concerned. It's just a word. I don't care what they call it. Why do we worry about words anyway, aren't the rights connected to them far more important? If you want to, sure. Also, they have no legal ramifications whatsoever. To me, it means the same as civil union. It's a contract, nothing more, nothing less. Other then the fact that it doesn't matter what you call something, as long as the rights remain the same, no not really.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead