{"id":68325,"date":"2005-01-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-student-wants-under-god-kept-in-pledge\/"},"modified":"2005-01-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-06T00:00:00","slug":"uri-student-wants-under-god-kept-in-pledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2005\/01\/uri-student-wants-under-god-kept-in-pledge\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 student wants \u2018under God\u2019 kept in pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tHis essay on the subject selected for national publication <\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. — January 6 , 2005 — Nathaniel Nelson, a 溏心vlog免费B站 senior majoring in political science, doubts he\u2019ll ever run for political office. He does chair the State College Republicans and has worked on four local political campaigns.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cPolitical office is appealing to me, but I like to say what I believe, which isn\u2019t always what people want to hear,\u201d the 21-year-old Coventry resident says with a smile.<\/p>\n


\n\tNelson tackles a variety of often controversial topics in the bi-weekly column he writes for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s student newspaper, The Good 5 \u00a2 Cigar. One of those columns called \u201cUnder God,\u201d is included in the book What We Think: Young Voters Speak Out, which was published this fall. For more information about the book, click on www.collegetreepublishing.com.<\/p>\n


\nThe book\u2019s editors, two college seniors at Gonzaga University, compiled the non-partisan book to prove that 18- to 24-year-olds were anything but apathetic. The pair received more than 400 submissions from nearly 100 universities. The 99 essays they selected for publication represent a cross-section of opinions and subjects.<\/p>\n


\n\tNelson wrote \u201cUnder God\u201d last spring when Michael Newdow, an atheist, was calling the \u201cunder God\u201d phrase in the pledge of allegiance unconstitutional because it was a violation of his \u201creligious\u201d rights. Newdow asked the Supreme Court to remove the phrase, claiming the government was indoctrinating his daughter by having her recite the pledge at school and more precisely, insinuating that her father\u2019s beliefs were wrong. <\/p>\n


\nThe court dismissed the cast last summer saying that Newdow\u2019s partial custody of his 10-year-old daughter did not give him sufficient standing to raise the constitutional challenge in her behalf. This week Newdow filed another lawsuit, this time joined eight co-plaintiffs, all either parents or children. <\/p>\n


\nBefore writing \u201cUnder God,\u201d Nelson did what he generally does when he hasn\u2019t formed an opinion about a topic, the 溏心vlog免费B站 student researched it.<\/p>\n


\nThe 溏心vlog免费B站 student finds the phrase, \u201cone nation under God,\u201d which was added to the pledge during the Cold War years of the 1950s to establish the moral and religious distinction between America and Lenin\u2019s \u201cgodless tyranny,\u201d compatible with the constitution\u2019s insistence that there be a separation of church and state. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe constitution forbids a state-sponsored denomination,\u201d Nelson argues. \u201cThe pledge doesn\u2019t say, one nation under a Christian God. It simply says one nation under God, which recognizes a higher power. Our country was founded with a state sponsored set of beliefs or morals. Our Founding Fathers acknowledged that our liberties did not come from government, but from a \u201chigher being\u2019, \u201can all knowing being\u201d and from \u201cDivine Providence.\u201d So right from the beginning we recognized we conformed to a higher ideal, I think government has the responsibility to promote that ideal.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIf we remove \u201cunder God\u201d from the pledge, he adds, \u201cwe should keep in mind that there is a difference between a merely secular government and one which is atheistic.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tRaised a Baptist, Nelson now regularly attends Christian Hill in West Warwick. He has been nominated for 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Rainville Award, a competitive process that recognizes outstanding student achievement at 溏心vlog免费B站. He was also selected by 溏心vlog免费B站 to be a member of Leadership Rhode Island\u2019s Emerging Leaders Program. The program is designed to help college students with demonstrated leadership skills make the transition from college to civic engagement by providing information and experiential learning about Rhode Island history, issues facing the state, the nonprofit sector, public service and government, and community service at the workplace.<\/p>\n


\nAfter graduating from 溏心vlog免费B站 this May, Nelson plans to attend graduate school to earn a doctorate degree in international relations, particularly Middle Eastern affairs.\n\t<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

His essay on the subject selected for national publication KINGSTON, R.I. — January 6 , 2005 — Nathaniel Nelson, a 溏心vlog免费B站 senior majoring in political science, doubts he\u2019ll ever run for political office. He does chair the State College Republicans and has worked on four local political campaigns. \u201cPolitical office […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68327,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}