LIVERMORE FALLS – Twenty-one-year-old Amie Smith voted against having the Pledge of Allegiance on the SAD 36 agenda last week. It’s not because she is against religion or patriotism but because she wanted to represent all the people and not just a few, she said Monday.
That’s why she ran for the school board this spring.
The Livermore Falls High School 2003 graduate was the lone dissenter in a 12-1 board vote Dec. 8 to say the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of board meetings. Smith was one of three SAD 36 directors who protested the recitation of the pledge during school board meetings due to it being added to the board’s agenda without full board approval.
“The board has approved it by policy standards, so I’ll stand up for it now, but I might not say it because when I decided to run for the board, mostly because of my time in high school, middle school and in the district, I wanted to be there for all the students, not just a few, parents, teachers, administrators and community members and as a future teacher myself, and the knowledge I’m getting.”
When this was passed, she said, she asked about students and the repercussions of not standing to say the pledge and disobeying a teacher, if the teacher tells them to stand.
In the (school) handbook if you disobey a teacher, you can face consequences such as a reprimand or suspension, she said.
“It’s not that I’m not religious. It’s not that I’m against religion and it’s not that I’m not patriotic either,” Smith said. “But there a lot of students and community members in general that can’t do or recite the Pledge of Allegiance the way it is written.”
The “under God” portion of the pledge added in 1954 causes concern for some people, she said.
For example, Smith said, the Jehovah Witnesses found saluting a nation’s flag as a form of idolatry and they can’t say it because its a violation of a commandment of Exodus. It is also forbidden in the Bible books of John and Matthew, she added. And, she added, the U.S. Customs Service says that a person is expected to stand for the pledge but is not required to stand, face the flag or remove their headdress, Smith said.
Smith presented lots of documents to explain how the pledge came to be.
Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister, Christian socialist and educator, wrote the pledge for an 1892 Columbus Day celebration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America. The pledge was published in “The Youth’s Companion” Sept. 8, 1892, edition and a month later more than 12 million school children recited the words for the first time in schools across the nation, according to Smith and several of her documents.
The initial pledge read: “I pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The pledge was amended in 1923 changing the words to “the flag of the United States” and the following year it was changed to “the flag of the United States of America.”
The last change occurred on Flag Day on June 14, 1954, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved the wording “under God” as suggested by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization.
“I think if I could be reassured that students wouldn’t be ridiculed or questioned and they were made aware of their rights while they were being respectful with others, then I think it should be up to students to which version they feel comfortable saying,” Smith said. “It is important in early years and high school to learn about their history but they also need to learn about themselves and their comfort. The way I saw it, I was showing the students they do have a right to be themselves as long as they’re respectful.”
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