In her opinion this is more of a patriotic phrase than a religious phrase. Kitch believes that without our religious background we would not have the freedoms that we have and that we still embrace religious beliefs as part of our national systems. She says that it all comes back to the controversy of separation of church and state.

I can identify weaknesses and one strength in Kitch’s article.

The strength that I found is the fact that she clarifies the overall ramifications of deleting the word “god” from “The Pledge of Allegiance.” One of the weaknesses that I found is that Kitch tried to see both sides of the issue and ended up contradicting herself. She says it is not okay to impose religious beliefs on a person; but at the same time she is saying it is okay to impose the belief in god in this instance. She also implies that most people do not attach any serious meaning to the phrase “under god” and yet at the same time she says many people do attach serious meaning to the phrase. Another weakness that I noticed was that she talks about Jefferson’s “wall of separation” as being “shot full of holes”. Yet she bases her article on the premise that the separation of church and state is true and valid. So it would seem Kitch is writing from a false premise which she endorses because it benefits her personal beliefs.

According to Mathew Staver, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “It is one of the misfortunes of the law that ideas become encysted in phrases, and thereafter for a long time cease to provoke further analysis.” Staver adds to this statement by saying that the phrase “separation of church and state,” has become one of these misfortunes of the law. (Staver, p.1) Also according to Staver another Supreme Court Justice, Willia

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