[Aeolun]

Are there really parents that would force their children to say it anyway? This feels like such a bizarre thing to have a fight over.

[nunez]

Absolutely. Children have been disowned and cut off for not following the faith of their families. Many parents take the "under God" part seriously.

[jhanschoo]

I think it reasonable to assume that the principal, at least, would be such a parent

[conception]

What? This is incredible if you don’t think a sizable portion of parents in America would force their children to say it.

[embedding-shape]

I think it's slightly unbelievable to us who grew up in secular societies where being agnostic/atheistic/non-practing-believer is fairly common and not so out of the ordinary. Then we start hearing about the experiences in christian-nationalistic countries and how it is growing up there, and it's just very different from what you expect from a modern country.

I'm guessing Aeolun might be from one of those places/countries/states :)

[tombert]

No idea, but this was an overwhelmingly conservative part of Florida (Niceville, probably most famous for being where Matt Gaetz is from), so it wouldn't surprise me if some of the Southern Baptists or Pentacostals in the area would get their children in trouble over that.

Even twenty-three years later, I'm still a little surprised that they sent me to the principal's office over it. It seems like it was a waste of everyone's time, considering it would have been considerably easier to just roll their eyes and let me sit in class.

[nunez]

Well those pearls weren't going to clutch themselves, you know.