One conservative member of our Eugene City Council proposed that the Council open its regular meetings by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The council’s’ compromise to cite it four times a year drew a story on Fox News and many mainly hostile emails and phone calls, mostly from out of state. A typical letter was quoted in the local newspaper: “You have made our decision easy for us. We have decided to move our 120-member family reunion away from Eugene, you communist bastards.”
Instead of making the Pledge of Allegiance the conservative's litmus test for patriotism, let's reframe the discussion to who's actually keeping the pledge. Time and time again, while proud to recite "with Liberty and Justice for All," conservatives are working hard to build and maintain hierarchies, such as ones based on wealth, sexual orientation, gender, religion, race, environment, corporate power, and world order. If the City of Eugene would reframe the issue by asking conservatives how they support the equality that they voice, then the focus would turn the other way. Let's set up the conservatives to do the explaining.
