Pledge Of Allegiance ‘Opt Out’ Form Causes Serious Social Media Outrage

Parents are angry that a school wanted to allow kids to skip the Pledge of Allegiance

An elementary school in Florida stirred outrage this week when they sent a permission slip home to parents allowing them to stop their children from having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning.

The note was fairly innocuous, reading: “I understand my rights as a parent and request that my child…be excused. This includes standing and placing his/her right hand over his/her heart.”

One parent posted a picture of the note on Facebook, after writing in “This is the dumbest thing I have ever read and I am so ashamed of this.” The rest of Facebook seems to agree.

The comments on the photo include:

“I’m thinking I would pull my kids out of that school immediately! Scary thing is, it probably won’t be long before that type of ridiculousness is everywhere.”

“8 years of Obama and a Congress that has done zero to stop him.”

“That’s heartbreaking.”

Wow. That’s a lot of outrage over what some parents let their kids do. To be honest, I have a kid in public school and I had no idea whether they were still doing that (I just asked him, and they do say it). Call me unpatriotic, but I’m not concerned about this. Are the kids learning to read? Are they learning arithmetic? So long as they’re not opting out of the actual learning they need, I’m basically okay.

There’s no need to make this about a lack of respect for the country or for the armed forces or all the other stuff people are claiming – the armed forces actually fight for us to have the right to choose what we want to do, rather than be forced to do something we don’t want to do.

Does not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance make someone a traitor to the United States? Not any more than reciting it every day means they’re going to be President. Most of us probably feel pretty lucky to be American citizens, even if some of us are a little disappointed and/or nervous about some of the stuff going on in the country right now. But grabbing our pitchforks and storming a school because they dared to let people opt out of something most kids probably don’t remember by the time they hit their twenties seems a little silly to me.

After all, this country is built on freedom. Freedom of choice, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Maybe some parents don’t like the religious language in the pledge, maybe some parents don’t like the idea of making their kids pledge fealty to something they are too young understand, maybe some parents don’t want to make their kids stand up every morning, who knows. I have a hard enough time getting my kid to eat his cereal, maybe some parents want to make the teachers’ jobs easier. You do you. It’s a free country, after all.

Of course, the outrage at how other parents raise their kids isn’t the only thing that’s silly. It seems a bit ridiculous that such a permission slip would be sent out, and plenty of people are sick of the “political correctness” that seems to have spawned such a thing – everyone is so worried about not offending anyone that everyone immediately gets offended. It’s just a waste of time.

Which might be why the school eventually rescinded the note. It was causing far more trouble than it’s worth.