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Posted on 10/23/2001 8:12:35 AM PDT by NorCoGOP

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Weird times can lead people to do weird things. There has been a lot of debate, but the school board in Madison, Wis., recently decided not to allow students to either say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem. The former invokes God, of course, and the latter talks about bombs bursting in air, which could in turn incite children to violence.

I am sure all those board members had visions of ACLU awards dinners dancing in their heads when they made that decision, but those visions soon faded as thousands of parents flooded the phone lines and radio waves protesting the vote.

After another meeting, which had to be relocated because of the turnout, the board voted 6-1 to overturn their prior decision. The children will say the Pledge of Allegiance, but it will have to be preceded by the clause, "We live in a nation of freedom. Participation in the pledge is voluntary. Whoever wishes to participate may stand, those who do not may sit."

This is a true statement and almost completely uncontroversial. And unless you were born with your head attached to your colon, it is also completely unnecessary.

One can be certain those board members took a tremendous amount of pride in standing up to the rising tide of patriotism that has been sweeping the nation since Sept. 11. No doubt they speak of their heroism over morning coffee and make jokes about the backward, brainwashed parents of Madison.

They were dissenters, and dissenters thrive on going at it alone.

That's fine, just so long as they realize that most of the time -- this was a case in point -- there is a reason the dissenter stands alone. The school board stood alone because they were so incredibly wrong. My only surprise was that Jesse Jackson was nowhere to be found.

There is nothing inherently right in standing alone just as there is nothing wrong with it. But the Left so loves being the dissenting voice on every topic that they have turned it into a crusade. Many times they even consider themselves loners when the majority's opinion is on their side.

I remember watching the Emmy awards last year when "Will and Grace" won Best Comedy (or something like that). The speeches all focused on how brave and daring the creators were in making a sitcom about homosexuals.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong (I'm not, mind you), but it seems to me that making a show about homosexuals in Hollywood is about like making a show about steel mill workers in Pittsburgh. How were they pushing the boundaries when everyone they knew supported them?

The reason we live in a republic is because occasionally the majority is wrong. The reason we were founded on democratic principles is because most of the time the majority is right. That is how civilization evolved, by societies deciding over time which behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not.

Occasionally, one must be willing to brave the odds and stand on principle. Even when that time comes, one must accept that someone might disagree.

This is certainly not a religious argument; it is about rights and how far our government can go to restrict those rights. If 90 percent of parents at a football game want to say an invocation asking God to protect their children from harm, how does a pre-game prayer impede on the rights of an atheist in Sec. D? If 90 percent of the population prayed to the god of jellybeans, would they be forcing their religion on anyone else by enjoying a moment of tasty goodness before the game?

You can chalk the Madison school board's decision up to political correctness, I suppose, but that would let the individual board members off the hook. It was a plain stupid decision made by people with spines made of applesauce.

They are certainly only one of the cases in many across the nation -- Berkeley, Calif., comes to mind -- but the Madison case demonstrates there is something very appealing about dissension.

Even when it's wrong.

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