The Pledge of Allegiance has received a lot of attention in the last few years. The words "under God," inserted in 1954, became the centerpiece of a 2004 Supreme Court case. While I believe very strongly in the separation of church and state, I actually believe that the most important words in the Pledge come at the end: "liberty and justice for all." That phrase sums up what makes our government stronger than any other form of government we know. Unfortunately, those who are afraid that our morals will erode away if we don't protect one phrase in the Pledge aren't paying enough attention to how well we are fulfilling this most important phrase.
Liberty and justice for all. This is the ideal that I was willing to die for. This is the ideal that my son risked his life for when he went to Iraq. No matter what our government's rationale
du jour for invading Iraq, he believed that his mission was to bring liberty and justice to people who didn't have either. These are ideals I hold very dear, and I have yet to see them completely realized, even in my own country. I know that we have much work ahead of us.
Patrick Henry spoke of liberty on March 23rd, 1775. "The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us." In other words, liberty makes us invincible.
It took nearly 90 years after Henry's speech before the Emancipation Proclamation brought liberty and justice closer to being guaranteed for all. It took nearly another 60 years after the Emancipation Proclamation before the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. And it was another 35 years after the 19th Amendment before a middle-aged American woman claimed the liberty to sit where she pleased on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
In the summer of 1969 the fight for liberty flared once again in Greenwich Village, New York, when lame duck Mayor Lindsey raided a bar in his city to harass its minority patrons, and the word spread quickly in the lesbian, gay, and transgender community to resist. Like the movement of Patrick Henry, this was a fight for liberty and justice, and it continues to this day.
Unfortunately, liberty and justice for all has not become reality. Today, millions of hard-working, patriotic Americans do not share the same rights I have. My union with my wife of 26 years is sanctioned by law and we have rights that some of my most loyal friends do not enjoy, such as health benefits, tax benefits, survivorship benefits, and the right to take care of each other and to make decisions, if necessary, on each other's behalf.
Liberty remains under heavy assault. Many conservatives in Congress support a constitutional amendment to define marriage in a way that would legally exclude a large number of citizens from ever claiming the rights that marriage bestows.
The Constitution that I spent a career defending with my life was designed to establish justice and ensure the blessings of liberty. Amendments have extended that liberty and justice. A federal marriage amendment would do the opposite.
Oppression in our society is a blemish of bigotry that we can not tolerate.
I believe, as Patrick Henry did, that people armed in the cause of liberty are invincible. And I therefore cannot help but believe that a nation that disarms its people of their liberties becomes weaker. We are a nation of diversity and we can not limit our liberty, because it weakens our nation.
One nation with liberty and justice for all. We have some work to do.
Jeff Latas for Congress