Brookline group: Wave bye to Pledge of Allegiance in school

By John Zaremba and Joe Dwinell
Thursday, September 8, 2011

Photo by Matt Stone
STRIPES GRIPE: If Martin Rosenthal gets his way, kids in Brookline schools won’t be saying the Pledge of Allegiance.

Peaceniks in leafy, lefty Brookline are trying to ban the Pledge of Allegiance from town schools, insisting the iconic verse has anti-patriotic overtones and even shades of McCarthyism — a claim seen as an insulting absurdity by families of fallen soldiers and 9/11 victims as the 10th anniversary of that horrific day approaches.
“That’s nuts. This is just really stupid,” said Jack Steele of Duxbury, whose son, 1st Lt. Timothy Steele, was killed in action in Kandahar, Afghanistan, last month. “I just find it so disrespectful when I look at the number of men who have given their lives so we could live the way we want.”
Brookline Political Action for Peace — also known as Brookline PAX — will push Town Meeting voters in November to urge the School Committee to end the requirement that principals allow a weekly recitation of the Pledge during morning announcements. The town lets students choose whether to participate.

The activist group argues the pledge has no educational value and is “literally and psychologically a loyalty oath, reminiscent of McCarthyism or some horrific totalitarian regimes.”