{"id":509,"date":"2011-06-26T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-27T03:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=509"},"modified":"2011-06-26T22:57:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-27T03:57:00","slug":"do-you-choose-to-sing-or-not-sing-the-star-spangled-banner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=509","title":{"rendered":"Do you choose to sing or not sing the Star Spangled Banner?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This <a href=\"http:\/\/religion.blogs.cnn.com\/2011\/06\/26\/my-faith-why-i-dont-sing-the-star-spangled-banner\/?hpt=hp_c1\" target=\"_blank\">CNN Belief Blog <\/a>discusses the reaffirmation at Goshen College to not play the Star Spangled Banner at athletic events. For some people our national anthem is seen as so militaristic as to be offensive to religious conscience and not good for this country.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s no secret that for reasons of conscience I neither sing the Star Spangled Banner nor do I recite the Flag Pledge. I stand respectfully quiet in such instances. I am much relieved that Goshen College, after much public deliberation, reversed its decision of last year and chose to continue its practice of not playing the Star Spangled Banner before athletic events. As is pointed out in the article, \u201cThese convictions do not reflect ingratitude or hatred for our country.\u201d It\u2019s a shame that folks feel they must deny the fact that we view these behaviors as that of responsible citizens who do what we believe is best for everyone. This right is protected by the First Amendment. I regret (but am not really that surprised, seeing that I\u2019ve been there personally) all the venomous and hateful comments that this article received on CNN.<\/p>\n<p>I will gladly say the Flag Pledge when this country does have \u201cliberty and justice\u201d for all. Otherwise, I\u2019d feel like I was lying. \u00a0I am grateful to all who have worked and suffered for the cause of true peace. As a pacifist, I am actively working to reduce such suffering, now and in the future.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This CNN Belief Blog discusses the reaffirmation at Goshen College to not play the Star Spangled Banner at athletic events. For some people our national anthem is seen as so militaristic as to be offensive to religious conscience and not good for this country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love","category-peace","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions\/510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}