EDITORIAL:
WHY WRITE A LETTER
TO THE EDITOR?

Since RLTE began publishing, we have repeatedly heard from people who say they love the idea of what we’re doing, but that they’ve given up on writing letters to the editor. In the past, they report, they have spent substantial time and energy conscientiously composing letters, only to have them disappear into a void.

If you are one of those who have ceased writing letters, we urge you to rethink this withdrawal, to put your visions, thoughts and public spirit back into motion. Letters provide a powerful tool for portable thought.

Writing a letter offers you the opportunity to articulate a trenchant, informed and concise analysis of the course of human events, unfettered by advertisers’ interests or by editorial inclinations that routinely govern “the news that’s fit to print.”

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE.
Written by Serena Nanda to
The New York Teacher, April 2005.

To the Editor:
Re: Your “Point of View” column (April 2005), in which most of the teachers who wrote defended their right to coerce their students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, with its inclusion of the phrase, “under God,” demonstrates the most appalling ignorance of both American history and the Constitution. If these points of view represent the views of most teachers it is all too easy to understand why the religious right is tightening its grip on this society. American history may demonstrate the importance of faith in God by a majority of Americans, but these writers overlook the fact that our Founding Fathers, who were products of the Enlightenment, believed at most only in a vague conception of a deity, one that belonged to no particular religious group. The Founding Fathers were most concerned that no religion—whether a Judeo-Christian based one, or any other, should ever get the power to insert its beliefs and rituals into public life. That is what the First Amendment to the Constitution is about. While the First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion, it does not protect the right to impose an individual or group's religious beliefs on others, whether these religious views are held by a majority of Americans or not. Indeed, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment specifically forbids the government and by

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