Over time, the term "equality" has been subjected to a considerable amount of censure in the political culture of this nation.  Bellamy neglected to include it in his original version of the pledge because racial segregation was a hot-button issue in his day.  During the cold war, the term again came under censure because the constitution of the Soviet Union reputedly employed the phraseology "equality" in its preamble.  In spite of the ideological pretenses of communism, civil equality under the law is essential to a legitimate democracy and consequently one of the fundamental ideals of our Nation, even though it has proven to be a tenaciously difficult ideal to fulfill.   The notion that it should be repressed because in one era it flew in the face of a culture of racial bigotry, and then in another era because it was espoused in the ideology of an arch rival government, is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  It is likewise with subverting our Nation's Constitutional principle of separation between government and religion simply because the Soviet Union espoused  an anti-religious ideology.   It should be evident that under communist ideology, the people are equal only in the sense that no one is permitted the practice of any religion except by the whim of the state.   Whereas, under the US Constitution the people are equal in sense that each is to be free to make their own choices about religion and religious affiliation, thus leaving such matters to the recognizance of the individual rather than to the State.  This is a rather profound difference indeed.

Undoubtedly, the champions of the pledge, will remind us that it was allegedly altered to provide a "spiritual tool" to help defense the Nation against the spread of the anti-religious communist ideology of the Soviet Union.  However, any notion that the altered pledge in any way significantly contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union is whimsical at best.  This is particularly so considering that we managed to win the Second World War without such a piece of work.  What is much more certain, however, is that government institutionalization of the "under God" pledge subverted the Constitution and thereby significantly strengthened biblical theocracy's grip on American national politics.  The red scare witch hunts of the 1950's, made it a virtual icon of right wing political tactics to brand anyone who objects to the revised pledge as an atheist and a subversive.  After all, as the reasoning surely goes, anyone who would object to the school children being compelled to pledge allegiance to God must be one of them despicable atheists, who if not communist are nevertheless enemies to "true" American values.  The problem is, where did our American values go that our Constitution was so easily thrown in the trash over the existence of yet another ideological competitor in the world?   There is indeed a very patriotic reason for objecting to the pledge, as in being allegiant to the Constitution's principle of government-religion separation, knowing full well that state sanctioned monotheism of any cloth will ultimately send the Nation down a path equally as totalitarian and regressive as communism.