I was pleased to see the Appleton City Council will keep in place a rule that requires the Pledge of Allegiance be recited at meetings of the city council, its committees, and its boards and commissions.
Seven councilmembers voted against the Pledge: Vered Meltzer (District 2), Katie Van Zeeland (5), Denise Fenton (6), Patti Heffernan (8), Alex Schultz (9), Vaya Jones (10), and Nate Wolff (12). When they’re next up for re-election, I expect every one of them to face a strong and serious challenger.
Alderman Fenton was the one to propose doing away with the Pledge. In this age of identity politics, where politicians and pundits seem bent on emphasizing our differences rather than our shared values, Fenton and her colleagues sought to double-down by getting rid of a unifying statement.
The Pledge commits us to aspire to be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” That is a goal worth striving for, by our elected officials as well as by each of us as individual citizens.
Of course the country, our state, and our city aren’t there yet. We remain a work in progress. But if we don’t know what we’re aiming for – and if we aren’t willing to say it often, publicly, out loud – how can we possibly reach that goal?
