To the Town of Estes Park:
Wrong! "Under God" signifies the intent expressed in the Declaration of Independence that men are created with equal rights such as life and liberty. The DoI invoked that right as the sole authority for breaking with Britain, forming a new government and writing a Constitution of our own. The Founders wrote our Constitution around that very premise, the premise that those basic rights were inherent in every individual human being, regardless of religious belief or any other aspect of human life beyond the personal possession/expression/existence of life itself.
The phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is nothing more than a tip-of-the-hat to that premise, upon which everything from the War of Independence to our final victory and establishment of a democratic republican Constitution, and thus this nation, owes its existence.
Habecker must be a bonehead if he can't see that "under God" is the basis of this nation, in the sense that this nation recognizes as its very reason for being, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are sacrosanct human rights beyond the bestowal or retraction by government. Government which by its nature is merely bodies of men in authority. Authority that was intentionally limited by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He is too arrogant to realize (or simply admit) that the premise embodied in the phrase "under God" (the sanctity of individual life and liberty) is not religious. It is a premise that is in fact quite secular as it goes beyond the interpretations of any religion and speaks directly to the universal condition of the human desire of every individual to seek freedom in mind and body. The freedom and liberty to experience life to its fullest in the way each man's conscience leads him or her.
It would probably be a truism to say that all religions speak to that condition, each in its own way, but no religion can claim to "own" that condition of human experience. The phrase is very spiritual, completely so in fact, and is religious only in the origin of its referential poetry. But it is in no way religious in content or in context. In content it is an authentic colloquial metaphor for the premise I've been speaking of in perfect keeping with the Christian heritage of the Founders. That is an appropriate affirmation towards those men who established our nation and authored our individual protections from government in the Bill of Rights. If the quarrel is with any spiritual connotation whatsoever in the Pledge then there is a quarrel with the premise this nation was founded upon. Unless you redefine the word spiritual it cannot be separated from the concepts of sanctity of life or the right to follow one's conscience.
The context is simple enough, a pledge of allegiance to Flag, Country and Constitution, and Habecker seems either oblivious to the context or he rejects the premise. Or he could just be ignorant of the use of metaphor in prose. Perhaps he just likes to clown around. Whether he is ignorant of the basis of Independence and Constitution or he is coyly hostile to it is of no importance to the voter. In either case he presents a threat to the life and liberty of the rest of us. In either case he is unfit to hold any office of trust under our Flag. A man can't well serve a principle he doesn't understand and he won't serve a principle he is hostile to even if he loudly invokes it for his own benefit. If he's just clowning around you'll have to decide for yourself if you want to pay him a salary to do it.
TigersEye - resident of Estes Park - 1982-2002