"Amen" at the end of the Pledge?

Okay, so I was at jury duty today, and before being sworn in the court clerk led some 50 of us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Fine, no problem, till we get to the end -- "with liberty and justice for all" -- at which point a woman in the front row cuts the silence with a hearty "Amen!"

WTF?! I stood there staring at the back of her head and wishing she'd turn around (with some triumphant look no doubt) so she could see the daggers my eyes were shooting at her. Thankfully I wasn't impaneled with her or I would have found opportunity to get snarky. I do not suffer these religion-belongs-in-government fools lightly. This was COURT not some revival meeting.

Has anybody else heard the Pledge finished this way?

I have never heard of anyone doing this. She should have been kicked off the jury.

I didn't even think that far, it had me so stunned. But she shouldn't have been allowed to serve.

On the bright side, she was one nut among a roomful of serious Americans. And I met a very nice woman later on in the day who, it turned out, hates BushCo as much as I do. We chatted and laughed like old friends and the day flew!

to add an "Amen" at the end of it makes it especially heretical.

What an idiot she is.

Considering that neither a Christian nor a Jew should say the Pledge.

Eh?

This woman is a flag-worshipper. In ancient Rome she would have sold out
the Christians and Jews who refused to pledge allegiance to the Roman
civic symbols (which were mere symbols of state, and recognized as such.)

According to Paul, contra what he is claimed to have said in
II Corinthians (which refers to church leaders), the Kingdom of Heaven
will only come when "every ruler, every principality and power"
(referring to human rulers) has been ground into dust.

I'm not sure where Reform Judaism stands on the issue, but Temple Jews
were willing to go to war or commit suicide rather than allow Roman
symbols of government to be associated with their concept of God.

Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom!

Altho I believe I remember reading "Congo"
(no relation to the country, of course) in
Lit class which was long ago....

Some consider it racist. Hard to say.

For the Jew, allegiance is to God.

I would imagine the same is to be said for Muslims, but I don't know enough about Islam to be sure on that.

To pledge allegiance to anything else is blasphemy.

i mean, technically, "amen" can be translated as "let it be so" or something like that, but it's still a pretty unconventional thing, and obviously based in judaism and christianity. Perhaps she went to school at some christian school where they did this to reduce the previously mentioned heretical connotations

But it certainly wasn't a mainstream christian school if that's where she picked it up. I went to a catholic school as a tyke, and we never ended the Pledge with "Amen". The Pledge isn't a prayer. And it was shocking to hear this done in a jury assembly room of all places.

though, really, catholic schools tend not to be as psycho about stuff like that, from my friends' experiences.

This woman was trying to make a scene, bottom line. And there's nothing you can do about it... I don't know how i would have stopped myself from hurling the closest object at her

"one nation, indivisible.."

LIKE IT WAS IN 1924.

The under god bullshit was put in in 1954, during all the red scare crap.

I tried to leave it out but wound up stumbling over the rest! I learned it with the Under God part in and don't mind saying it. But these fundie fruitcakes seem to want to turn it into some kind of prayer. It was totally inappropriate.

No less.

I wonder if all those nutcase fundies realize that they are praying to the "Catholic" God when they say the Catholic-approved version of the Pledge?

Before the Great Red Scare in the fifties, and when the Catholic Church lost a large source of funding from all over Europe, particularly from behind the Iron Curtain, no one really cared about 'god' being part of the Pledge.

The campaign to include those words was orchestrated by the KofC.




As an a aside, I always felt that 'godless communists' would have prevailed if they just played ball with the Vatican.