80th Legislature: Legislation Seeks To Tamper With Pledge To The Texas Flag

Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one and indivisible.

The Pledge of Allegiance to the Texas Flag has existed largely untouched since the 1933 adoption of the Texas Flag Code. Now, State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Houston) seeks to make the first substantive changes to the pledge in more than seven decades by adding the words, “state under God” to the pledge. If her House Bill 1034 were to pass, the pledge would be:

“Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God and indivisible.”

There are a number of reasons Riddle’s House Bill 1034 is inappropriate legislation, and that it adds “under God,” is not my main complaint (although I think it is unnecessary). The new reading of the pledge adds the word “state” to the pledge.

As every good fourth grader knows, Texas was once a Republic. And, we still behave like we are a whole other country sometimes.

That aside, the reason the Pledge doesn’t include the word “state” in it is that it is an homage to the fact that we were once an independent nation and that, more than just any old state, we are, simply, “Texas.”

The adding of the word “state” to the pledge actually offends me. The adding of the words “under God,” just annoys me.

It denies us the right of worshipping the Almighty according to the dictates of our own conscience, by the support of a national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries, rather than the glory of the true and living God.

Did you read that whole “dictates of our own conscience” part? Although there were no Muslims, few Jews, no Jehovah’s Witness, (but probably some atheists), the framers of that document surely weren’t too thriled about a “national religion, calculated to promote the temporal interest of its human functionaries,” (meaning, at the time, the Roman Catholic Church).

We don’t need a state religion, either, even if it is one so seemingly-universially subscribed to in Texas as Christianity. Adding this to the constitution is just not appropriate.

Finally, when you tamper with historic things to try to cram in religion, you are making a serious mistake.

The pledge is a piece of state history and, aside from the flag, is one of the longest-standing unchanged symbols of the state that is more meaningful than a bluebonnet, pecan, mockingbird, or the fifty dozen other items that lawmakers have ordaned as the “official state…” (amphibian, mammal, native pepper, native shrub [no, it's not George W. Bush]…hot link, paperclip…) whatever. You get the idea).

In an age when our offical state symbols have become more tourist icons and regional gimmies, we still need something that’s not a commercialized, culturalized sell-out to hold on to.

And that, my friends, is the Pledge.

So, you can name Jesus the “Official State Savior of Texas,” if you want to, and name God the “Official State Creator,” and I’ll just chalk it up to Republicans being a bunch of Religious Right Whackos. You can name “Missionary” the “Official Coital Position of the State of Texas,” “Dallas” as the “Official State Television Show” and “Ozarka” as the “Official Aquifer Guzzler of Texas” for all I care. Many of the latter-day symbols are fairly meaningless and unknown (seriously, who knew the Lightening Whelk was the Official Shell of Texas?).

But keep your hands off the pledge.