Regarding Port Angeles City Councilman Dan Gase’s irrelevant, and slyly judgmental, dig about a city council candidate’s choice to eschew the Pledge of Allegiance [“PA Council Hopefuls Talk Issues,” PDN, June 28], for Mr. Gase’s information, I offer a few salient points.
The pledge is one sentence. I dare Gase to diagram it.
The flag is a symbol.
The flag is not the country, nor is it a concept.
I urge readers to read the entire treatise on the pledge at www.ushistory.org, and if a slight, cold chill doesn’t hit you, please read it again.
I don’t know Mr. Gase’s background, but I and many other of his constituents have taken a far more important oath, the oath of military enlistment: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
This is where the rubber meets the road and outweighs the pledge, which was written in 1892 by a minister, Francis Bellamy, 101 years after the First Amendment was ratified.
Bellamy wrote it intending that it not apply to any specific country.
It was intended to be recited by children.
The First Amendment was the first amendment to the Constitution for a reason.
Some religions forbid their members to say the pledge.
Are their members not worthy?
I no longer say the pledge because I don’t believe in doing so, but I do stand out of respect for others and because I don’t want to call attention to myself.
Am I not worthy?
Thomas Mitchell,
Port Angeles