Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Eugene, Oregon City Council and the Pledge of Allegiance

Some on the city council in Eugene, Oregon believe that the Pledge of Allegiance is divisive.

Its recitation is akin to reciting the Communist Manifesto.

It's not something that should be recited publicly.

The controversy in Eugene began when Councilor Mike Clark wondered why council meetings didn't begin with the Pledge.

From KATU:

Eugene City Councilor Mike Clark, who was elected in 2006, says he always wondered why the council didn't start its meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance.

He says he'll ask his seven colleagues and the mayor on June 20 to begin starting their meetings with the pledge.

The Register Guard reports many levels of government such as the Legislature, the Eugene School Board and Springfield City Council regularly say the pledge.

Clark's suggestion to begin meetings with the Pledge was met with hostility.

A majority of the council would not agree to regularly reciting the Pledge.

From the Register Guard:

Echoes of patriotism resounded at the Eugene City Council on Monday as councilors hotly debated and passed resolutions calling for the domestic redirection of federal “war funds” — and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance before four council meetings each year.

After a lengthy debate on how the city should spend any money it might receive as a result of a redistribution of federal funds, the council voted 7-1 to endorse a resolution “expressing the City Council’s desire that funds to continue the Iraq and Afghanistan wars be directed to domestic priorities, including the pressing needs in the city of Eugene.”

...Earlier, councilors returned to an ongoing debate over whether future meetings should commence with the saying of the Pledge of Allegiance.

In a revised compromise, the council agreed to recite the pledge at four meetings a year closest to the patriotic holidays of Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Flag Day and the Fourth of July. The council also agreed that excerpts from the U.S. Constitution or Declaration of Independence could be read aloud at the council meeting nearest the Fourth of July holiday.

The first opportunity to recite the pledge will come at the council’s July 11 meeting.

An earlier proposal to also recite the pledge at the annual State of the City address will now be left to the discretion of the mayor.

The issue surfaced several weeks ago when Councilor Mike Clark suggested that the pledge be recited at the start of bimonthly council meetings. But Clark agreed to a compromise put forth by Councilor Alan Zelenka when it seemed clear that a council majority was not prepared to endorse reciting the pledge on a regular basis.

Monday’s vote on the pledge was 6-2, with Councilors George Brown and Betty Taylor in dissent.

Clark said part of his motivation was to respond to constituents who often cite the fact that some Eugene traditions — namely, the eccentric Eugene Celebration in late summer — do not sit well with some residents but are nonetheless tolerated by them.

And, with the resistance to the idea of a public body reciting the pledge, Clark said he feels they are not being given the same liberty.

“Something they value in that way is met with hostility,” Clark said. “Tolerating those differences is an important part of the community that we live in. It has become an issue of tolerance to a certain degree.”

But Brown disagreed.

“This whole notion that we need something for the ‘not-weird’ seems very weird to me,” he said.

It's mind-boggling to me that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance before a government meeting would be a source of controversy.

The idea that a compromise was necessary, only saying it four times a year, is sad.

From MRC TV:

In Oregon, the Eugene Town Council voted 5-2 against a motion to recite the pledge at the opening of every town meeting. There was a compromise allowing the pledge to be said 4 times a year but only on certain holidays. One council member who voted for the ban said reading the pledge was like reading the Communist Manifesto before every meeting.



The Communist Manifesto?

The Pledge should be relegated to being recited only in one's own home but not in a public forum?

Good grief.

That's disgraceful.

I bet NBC's ratings are through the roof in Eugene.


I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

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