"Ashcroft said after the ruling that his Justice Department will ''spare
no effort to preserve the rights of all our citizens to pledge allegiance
to the American flag''--a misrepresentation so blatant that it
functions as a lie. The pledge remains intact and unchallenged. The
court said nothing about pledging allegiance to the flag. It spoke only
of the words ''under God''--which amounted, the court said, to an
endorsement of religion.
This is really an argument between two kinds of prayer--vertical and
horizontal. I don't have the slightest problem with vertical prayer. It is
horizontal prayer that frightens me. Vertical prayer is private, directed
upward toward heaven. It need not be spoken aloud, because God is a
spirit and has no ears. Horizontal prayer must always be audible,
because its purpose is not to be heard by God, but to be heard by
fellow men standing within earshot.
Under Bush we have had a great deal of horizontal prayer, in which we
evoke the deity at political events to send the sideways message that
our enemies had better look out, because God is on our side. This
week's Newsweek cover story reports that the Bush presidency ''is the
most resolutely 'faith-based' in modern times.''
Because our enemies are for the most part more enthusiastic about
horizontal prayer than we are, and see absolutely no difference
between church and state--indeed, want to make them the same--it is
alarming to reflect that they may be having more success bringing us
around to their point of view than we are at sticking to our own
traditional American beliefs about freedom of religion. When Ashcroft
and his enemies both begin their days with displays of their godliness,
do we feel safer after they rise from their devotions?
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