The Freedom To Pledge

As I'm sure that this will gain traction on Fox"News" - likely during Hannity or O'Reilly's hour; perhaps Beck if he isn't too busy insisting that George Soros is offering assassins millions to kill him and his family - I think I should address this in conjunction with conservatives new found interpretation of the First Amendment.



Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air points out that this is a rather old clip ( nearly 10 years old mind you ) so obviously there are conservatives scouring the CSPAN archives in an attempt to dig up "dirt" on Democrats.

Desperation much?

So is this the primary metric by which all politicians are judged by the modern conservative movement - whether they believe in an invisible man living in the sky?

The Fox"News" sister hate site Fox"Nation" highlights this bit of commentary to apparently further the narrative that all Democrats are godless heathens bent on destroying our nation through secular speech, or something.

A sad display of disrespect by a United States Congresswoman from Minnesota, Democrat Betty McCollum. It is a video that Betty does not want her voters to see, but it's too late Betty, you have been exposed.

After watching this video you will see how obvious it is that she she intentionally omitted the words, "Under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. At the time, her staffers claimed she took a breath, but with the video now out, the lie has been exposed.

Disrespect?

One would think that a member of Congress - regardless of who they are and where they are from - would know about the separation of church and state and be standing within the House of Representatives as one that represents ALL of her district, not just the ones that sit in the "amen pew" on Sunday mornings and then go off to Cracker Barrel and berate the server making minimum wage who didn't bring their coffee refill in time while talking trash about the couple sitting in front of them just hours before.

Hate to tell all those reactionary conservatives, but not everyone is a Christian, and Congress doesn't legislate under theocratic terms.

But as a First Amendment issue, isn't it the Congresswoman's right to say the pledge as she did? Granted, many will argue that she is in the "People's House", and that removes her freedom to recite as she sees fit, but considering the drivel that has come from conservatives within those same "hallowed halls", are they really wanting to make this argument right now?