Mayor orders man removed after he didn't stand for Pledge of Allegiance

[progree]

131. Does that change the Establishment Clause?

I can't get the tape to load after waiting and waiting and restarting and waiting... so I'll accept your characterization of it. OK, I'll take that paragraph out of #125. Here is #125 Rev 1:

Please read this from FFRF, and then argue that FFRF doesn't think a religious issue is at stake
or that the Greece ruling makes the religious argument irrelevant --

FFRF blasts mayor, police chief for ejecting citizen who wouldn't stand for prayer, pledge, 8/29/14

http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/21252-atheist-group-condemns-mayor-police-chief-for-ejecting-citizen-who-refused-to-stand-for-prayer

...Mayor John Rees told everyone present at the meeting to rise for the invocation and the pledge. As the prayer began, Rees interrupted, pointing at the seated Thoreau and saying, “We’re waiting for everyone to rise.” Thoreau repeatedly asserted he did not have to and remained seated. The sectarian prayer, given by a commission member, continued. {{But see #129, where the invocation had not begun yet}}

When Thoreau also refused to stand for the pledge, Rees ordered Police Chief George Brennan to “either escort him out or have him stand for the pledge.” Rees continued, “This is just not fair to our troops and people overseas, sir.”

... {FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew} Seidel informed Rees and Brennan that it is also unconstitutional to coerce citizens into showing deference to prayers, writing, “The government cannot ask people to stand, let alone force people to stand under threat of arrest.”

...As a remedy to this violation of Thoreau’s civil rights, FFRF urges Rees and Brennan to each explain at the next meeting that “citizens are within their rights to remain sitting for the pledge and that it does not reflect a lack of patriotism. In fact, refusing to rise and repeat the pledge is more patriotic and respectful of the godless, secular Constitution that created this nation, than rising and declaring our nation to be 'one nation under God.'”

The letter informs the officials to expect members of the Central Florida Freethought Community to be at the next commission meeting. “In a show of solidarity with John,” Seidel wrote, “they will exercise their First Amendment rights to remain seated during the invocation and pledge, both involving gods and a religion they do not worship. Mayor Rees and Chief Brennan ought to honor their rights.”

I think your notion that somehow his forcing Thoreau to stand for the Pledge but not for the invocation suddenly makes the Establishment Clause issue of forcing someone to stand for the Pledge to be irrelevant because he treated the two (invocation and pledge) differently is pretty dubious.

###### End of #125 Rev 1 ###################

As argued in #128 minus the "mayor's apparent reason" part which, anyway, is not all that material as to whether forcing someone to stand for the Pledge is or is not a violation of the Establishment Clause. The mayor's interpretation of what or what is not allowed does not change the Constitution.

And as argued in #128 - the FFRF news release does not get into the Greece stuff at all.

And thanks again for acknowledging in #126 that being forced to stand for a prayer may be a violation of the Establishment Clause.

Now why isn't being forced to stand for a theocratic declaration (the Pledge) not also a violation of the Establishment Clause?