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By Steven K. Paulson
The Associated Press
Thursday, February 19, 2004 -
Hoping to settle a court fight over the Pledge of Allegiance, Colorado
lawmakers today endorsed a plan that would allow public school students to
opt out of daily recitations.
Members of the Senate State Veterans and Military Affairs Committee sent the
plan to the full Senate for debate after rejecting a suggestion by the ACLU
to make the pledge itself "an opportunity," not a requirement.
Alan Chen, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, offered the
alternative as a way to resolve constitutional questions. "This case is not
about stopping anyone from saying the Pledge of Allegiance," Chen said.
The committee stuck to their wording and sent the measure (House Bill 1002)
to the Senate.
The legislation is intended to address the concerns of U.S. District Judge
Lewis Babcock, who declared the state's pledge law unconstitutional in
August after the ACLU filed suit.
That law required students in all public schools to recite the pledge. Only
non-students, those with religious objections and parents who opposed the
pledge could be excused. Teachers could decline only if they weren't
citizens or on religious grounds.
Babcock said that didn't do enough to protect people's First Amendment
rights and gave lawmakers nine months to fix the law.
Legislators have already rewritten the bill once by eliminating any option
and requiring all students to recite the pledge each day. Lawmakers added
the "opt out" options after talking with the state attorney general.
Text of a proposal to require willing public school students to say the
Pledge of Allegiance. It now goes to the full Senate for debate:
The Pledge of Allegiance shall be recited each school day by willing pupils
in elementary and secondary educational institutions supported or maintained
in whole or in part by public funds. Any person not wishing to participate
in the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance shall be exempt from reciting
the Pledge of Allegiance and need not participate.
--
"We are going to fight them and impose our will
on them and we will capture or, if necessary, kill
them until we have imposed law and order upon
this country,"
-- US Viceroy Paul Bremer,
how U$A is going to win 'hearts and minds'
of the subjugated people of Iraq
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