The U.S. Open Omits ‘Under God’ from the Pledge June 19, 2011

The U.S. Open Omits ‘Under God’ from the Pledge

By Guest Contributor
June 19, 2011

If you’re watching the U.S. Open championship (because you really like golf… or you lost the remote… dammit, where’s my remote?), then you might have caught a nice little surprise in NBC’s introduction, when they said the Pledge of Allegiance:

“Under God” was just skipped over (so was “indivisible”), so it went like this:

ONE NATION… [Soldier noises]… WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

Twitter’s currently in an uproar over this.

(via Reddit/r/atheism)

***Update***: Apparently, the Pledge was said twice, both versions omitting the “Under God” part:

First time:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, with liberty and justice for all.

Second time:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, with liberty and justice for all.

***Update 2***: The commentators just apologized for the omission on the air, calling it “an editing mistake.”

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What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment
  • Tom Bourque

    What do a bunch of military guys raising a flag and a bunch of children acting as if they are The Borg have to do with a golf tournament?

  • this is really cool

  • Amy C

    It’s about damn time!

  • Anonymous

    What’s sad, is that so few people seem to realize that ‘under god’ was only added in the 1950s to rally us against those godless commies. 😛

  • William Roentgen

    Damn it. A reason to not hate golf.

  • Rhodent

    Curiously, they also omitted “indivisible”. I wonder how many of the people who will inevitably bitch about the omission of “under God” will even notice that?

  • So, they didn’t get it wrong in he standard way (inserting the bit about “god”), but they still got it wrong. Twice, in different ways. What on earth was going on?

  • Hurray! They unknowingly put it back to the original.

  • Potco

    They just apologized for doing it.

  • Erik

    The announcer just apologized for the omission in the pledge.

  • JW

    All this “un-American” nonsense on the web. Porky Pig will set them straight.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33-5MbIE7eQ

  • Larry Meredith

    The real news here is that NBC found a way to make golf news worthy without investigating Tiger Wood’s sex life.

  • Chris aka "Happy Cat"

    The omission of “indivisible” in one version and “one nation” in the other is odd. Are they trying to please those who practically worship states’ rights and demand a weak federal government? (you know who you are.) Are golf fans mainly secularists, Libertarians and teabaggers?

    Aww, now I read it’s a mistake and they apologized. Damn.

  • According to the handy timeline at Wikipedia (praise be unto the Source of All Human Knowledge), “indivisible” has been in the pledge since the beginning. Plus, I thought indivisibility was kind of the point, since it was a reaction to the Civil War.

    So maybe the people who put this video together decided to take out the newest words and also some of the oldest words, perhaps in the name of balance. Or, more likely, maybe they were more concerned with making the montage look good than in getting the words right.

    Not that I’m cynical or anything.

  • jbird

    Them did not want to hurt the stupid people that dont enjoy this country. Perhaps they should leave and return to their county. Get the hell out of here.

  • Larry Meredith

    Just a little example of what I have to live with:

    My mom when I told her that part is illegal and was added in 1954: Who told you that?
    me: Erm… history?
    my mom: No it wasn’t. Even George Washington had it in there.
    me: *Dave Silverman face”

  • Julie

    My heart skipped a happy beat when I first read the headline. Hoping that it was intentionally omitted from the get go, but I can totally hear the bad editing skip in the video.

  • Them did not want to hurt the stupid people that dont enjoy this country.

    I love the smell of irony in the afternoon.

    Perhaps they should leave and return to their county.

    …but I do live in my county. If I left it and returned to it, it’s probably because I was out for a Sunday drive.

    Anyway, I still don’t know what this has to do with golf.

  • Drew M.

    What do a bunch of military guys raising a flag and a bunch of children acting as if they are The Borg have to do with a golf tournament?

    Tom, this made me giggle like a loon. Thanks! 🙂

  • jbird

    Red Mage Respect Respect Respect Its the right thing to do. You Commie redneck

  • JulietEcho

    Yeah, it was originally written with “indivisible” in it, and while it’s been changed four times since its adoption, that’s never been taken out. I think someone was lazy and used their bad memory to write it up instead of looking it up to make sure they got it right.

    I don’t think any of the changes were necessary. The original reads just fine to me:

    I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

  • Gordon

    How can they get angry if it is “harmless” and “ceremonial” to wedge Thor in there in the first place?

  • mike

    I always think of the pledge as a little silly. For example, I’ll put reality in ()’s.

    I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, (sort of fine, but I’d really only require allegiance oaths of public servants)

    one nation, (or Empire with territories and occupied lands that do not share in the American dream: Guam, Saipan, Puerto Rico, The Green Zone, Guantanamo, etc.)

    under god, (ugh, which one?)

    indivisible, (except for that whole Civil War and the territories like The Philippines and the Panama Canal that were permanently divided/separated)

    with liberty and justice for all (except …)

    FTFY

    and it’s definitely not brainwashing /srcsm

  • Chris Seguin

    If people are getting pissy about this – and I’m talking about the historically ignorant right – the statement ‘under god’ was added in the mid-50’s during the paranoid Cold War – it is basically a knee-jerk reaction to weed out the godless commie heathen . . . grow the fuck up or just SHUT THE FUCK UP.

  • Romo2Austin

    Just like to point out to everyone that the other big reason why “under god” was added is because the Catholic organization Knights of Columbus lobbied Congress to change the pledge in addition to putting in god we trust on our money and changing our National motto from E Pluribus Unum to “in god we trust.” Unfortunately they were successful.

  • We should be asking them why they apologized for removing the Congressional inclusion on the air, by calling it “an editing mistake” is a mistake and an insult to true American values. The government no business in changing secular speech into prayers.

    How do we contact them?

  • Once again; I wish we could get everyone to read The Pledge: A History of the Pledge of Allegiance by Jeffrey Owen Jones,especially the religious right.

    http://www.amazon.com/Pledge-History-Allegiance/dp/0312350023/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308531330&sr=1-1

  • Anonymous

    That is priceless, Nate.

  • Autumn

    OMG, they are coming out in droves on the NBC facebook page. “I’m boycotting NBC FOREVER!!” *eye roll*

  • Larry Meredith

    why are people so pissed off about this?
    It was clearly a mistake. Move on. If it were on purpose to be secular or make a statement about its unconstitutionality, why remove “indivisible”? That’s been in the pledge forever.

  • AWayfaringStrainer

    Kansas City Star is running a poll on this issue. Remarkably 86% are calling it blasphemy! The other option is Simple mistake, take a mulligan, in case you want to weigh in. I think we would all like a third option, but given the two, calling it blasphemy is being plain paranoid.

  • Larry Meredith

    why do we need a third option? It was a mistake. If they were trying to make a statement or be politically correct, why remove “one nation” and “indivisible”

    this just looks like a result of poor video editing. I feel sorry for the person that made that video. He’s gunna get canned now just because Christians blew this way out of proportion.

  • Anonymous

    Uh, hey Kansas City Star, blasphemy isn’t really a relevant concept in this country. (*facepalm* and I weep for our future etc)

  • Was the “editing mistake” made by an atheist, maybe?

  • Anonymous
  • gwen

    *steam, fume!*…the damned cowards..

  • crowepps

    Personally, I think the hold-over of using ‘under God’ in oaths of any kind should be abolished. I’m a Notary, and used to include it in the oath before people gave testimony, but God never struck any of them with a lightning bolt for the obvious lies they told afterwards, so now I say “under penalty of perjury”. The Courts are more likely to actually punish liars than the Almighty.

    Personally, I think the idea of using social pressure to get citizens to repeat loyalty oaths is dumb. Doing so as a part of government functions and including ‘under God’ is unConstitutional as a “religious test”.

  • Beriaal

    Nice. Next time let’s just skip the Pledge altogether. Now that would be perfect.

  • Roxy

    For the REAL low-down head over to the Blaze.

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/nbc-omits-under-god-from-pledge-during-u-s-open-introduction-twice/

    I was transfixed by the comments for about 30 minutes. It is a sea of…well, Beck’s people.

  • Hitch

    The apology is sad because apparently only some hurt feelings matter.

    But yeah here we go. The original pledge of allegiance is unamerican and godless! Scary.