Some Star-Spangled Banter.

As I was driving in my car earlier this morning, listening to my favorite latin music station (Latino 96.3), the DJs began discussing a song that was released a few days ago, a Spanish language version of the American national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." The song in question, "Nuestro Himno," has created quite a lot of controversy in its few days of existence (due in part to the timing of its release, right before this coming Monday's "Day Without Immigrants"), to the point that even our illustrious President has been asked to weigh in on the subject. The man behind the the new song, British music producer Adam Kidron, claims that the song is not intended to put up language barriers or divide Americans, but rather to serve as a unifying force, enabling immigrants who have not yet achieved fluency in English to understand and appreciate the message of the anthem. What exactly is the problem with this? Look: no one is suggesting that "Nuestro Himno" replace "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem; I sincerely doubt people will be expected to stand at baseball games and sing in Spanish, and this isn't the first step in an insidious foreign plot to subvert the national language. This is an intercultural celebration of what is great about the United States. Why do we Americans have such a chip on our collective shoulder? We complain incessantly about how the rest of the world doesn't appreciate what we do and what we stand for, but if someone tries to love us slightly differently from how we demand, we spit their face. There you have it: America is officially The Worst Girlfriend Ever.

Thinking about the furor generated by the release of this song got me to reflect on another relatively recent controversy concerning messages of American patriotism: the argument about the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't quite understand the uproar that has been caused by the suggestion of removing the words "under God" from the line "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." The Pledge has actually gone through 3 incarnations since it was first written by Francis Bellamy in 1892. In fact, until 1954, the Pledge did not even include the words "under God" - they were inserted into the oath by Congress after some aggressive campaigning on the part of various Christian groups. So you see, it's not really disrespectful to suggest changing the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance, if it has already been revised multiple times since its conception. Plus, the last 2 changes were made almost exactly 30 years apart from each other, the last one being in 1954; you could say that it's now past time for another verbal facelift.

Let us not ignore that when this country was still a collection of colonies, many of them were founded by people trying to escape persecution of their respective religions. They came to this land to freely practice whatever religious faith they followed, without fear of reprisal. (Granted, whether or not they wanted Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Buddhists, and Hindus to share in this freedom is up for debate.) I know that some of the more extreme Christian groups in this country are fond of complaining about how the United States is being turned into a godless nation and their right to worship freely is being threatened; I would point out to them that no one is infringing on their ability to worship how they please, and in all fairness they should extend the same courtesy to those who follow a different faith, or even no faith at all. History has shown us that you do not necessarily need to be Christian to be a moral and upstanding citizen, and vice versa.

On a side note, it seems to me that pledging allegiance to an inanimate object - such as oh, say, a flag - comes dangerously close to practicing idolatry. So, to those who are scandalized by the blasphemy of attempting to merely remove what was awkwardly added in the first place, I would suggest that you read your Ten Commandments before you cast the first stone.