On April 20th, at the direction of Mike Ireland, our Executive Director, Iowa Secularists’ lobbyist registered our official opposition to Senate File 470, the Education Appropriation omnibus bill before the Iowa legislature. Normally we would not have any political opinion on an education bill, but House Amendment 1571 added a late provision that would mandate the daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in all Iowa classrooms. This was
proposed during 2008 as stand-alone legislation and was defeated; this year it was inserted into a large, budgetary bill by Representative Windschitl. We joined the ACLU of Iowa in opposing this bill due to the Pledge of Allegiance requirement.
There are doubtless many reasons to oppose such a mandated recitation of any creed or oath to any object or symbol, but Iowa Secularists restricts itself in this instance to the issue of separation of church and state. In fact, I personally know there are different feelings about this particular subject among our members and I think this is a perfect opportunity to use our meetup groups, forum discussions and other social outlets to explore where we differ; how, even though we share many common opinions, we still are anything but a homogeneous community.
Thankfully, the mandatory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance was removed by the Iowa Senate on April 22nd. The bill now, however, moves into conference between the two houses and the Pledge requirement may end up being a bargaining chip. Below is a list of the Senators who voted for and against the Pledge of Allegiance legislation. Please call or email your Senator and express your thanks or disappointment, based on their vote. The House Amendment to add the Pledge legislation passed 95-0, so all House members should hear from their secular constituents about the necessity of church-state separation.
Most importantly, the conference committees from each chamber for this bill are Senators Schoenjahn, Boettger, Heckroth, Quirmbach, and Zaun, and Representatives Winckler, Ficken, Kressig, Dolecheck, and Sweeney. If you are one of these legislators’ constituents, your words will be especially important in ensuring that the Pledge of Allegiance mandate is removed from the education omnibus bill.
You can find your legislators’ contact information at http://www.legis.state.ia.us/FindLeg/
Iowa Secularists continues to watch legislation and politics in Iowa, taking a stand when necessary to protect the religious rights of all Iowans by strongly advocating the long-standing, bedrock American principle of
separation of church and state.
Sincerely,
Bob Ready
President
Iowa Secularists
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IOWA SENATE
On “Shall division S-3302A be adopted?” (S.F.470), the vote was:
Voting Yea (for *REMOVING* the Pledge of Allegiance requirement) 31:
Appel Dvorsky Jochum Schmitz
Beall Fraise Kibbie Schoenjahn
Black Gronstal Kreiman Seng
Bolkcom Hancock McCoy Sodders
Courtney Hatch Olive Stewart
Danielson Heckroth Quirmbach Warnstadt
Dearden Hogg Ragan Wilhelm
Dotzler Horn Rielly
Voting Nay (for *KEEPING* the daily Pledge of Allegiance recital) 17:
Bartz Hahn McKinley Wieck
Behn Hamerlinck Noble Zaun
Boettger Houser Reynolds Dandekar
Kapucian Seymour Feenstra Kettering
Ward
Absent 2:
Hartsuch Johnson
