Nov 16, 2009

10 Year old refuses to recite Pledge of Allegiance until Gays can marry

This is intriguing to me, for several reasons.

First off, you know the conservatives are going to attack the hell out of this kid. The Conservatives have proven time and time again that they have no problems attacking children when politics are involved.

Secondly, this is a pretty profound and ballsy move by this kid. If his motivations are pure, and he's not being used by his parents to put forth their opinion, then my hats off to him. It takes a lot of guts to stand up in the face of adversity for something you believe in. Especially when you're fighting for other people's rights.

And finally, as I alluded to in the previous paragraph, his motivations WILL be called into question. Part of that is just common sense. I think anytime a child is put in the public eye due to a political stand, people will naturally question that, because I think we all have this idea of children as innocents who aren't able to formulate complex thoughts about things of this nature.

But also, and I immediately zoned in on this, some of his language was not something that I would associate with a ten year old. Now, I'm not well versed on the language skills of today's ten year olds. I haven't been ten years old for twenty five years, and I don't recall my vocabulary back then.

But certain words he used I was thinking "really? a ten year old says those words in conversation?" However it could be that this kid is a bright kid and he says he wants to be a laywer so it's quite possible that it is normal for him to speak like that.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Speaking to CNN's John Roberts on Monday, Will said he remained seated four straight days while his classmates repeated the words, "with liberty and justice for all."

"I was analyzing the meanings of it, because I want to be a lawyer," he said. "... There isn't really liberty and justice for all. There's ... Gays and lesbians can't marry. There's still a lot of racism and sexism in the world. Yeah."

Eventually, the substitute teacher started giving Will "grief" over his refusal to repeat the words. "What did you say to that teacher?" Roberts asked.

I eventually, very solemnly -- with a little bit of malice in my voice -- said, 'Mam, with all due respect, you can go jump off a bridge," Will explained.


And that last passage, "very solemnly -- with a little bit of malice in my voice" does sound a bit odd to come from a child, but like I said, it could be more my being out of touch with today's children.

Here's the video of the kid's interview:

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