It’s hard to ignore how loud the Pledge of Allegiance debate has become in Athens. What began as a proposal to add a pledge to the start of city council meetings turned into a packed room, heated public comments and a debate that has stayed in the headlines.
This is a city council, not a stage. It’s a governing body. The council decides how about $55 million of public money is spent, how services are delivered and how the city responds to the issues that affect residents’ daily lives.
And yet, the most intense debate lately has been about whether the meeting should begin with a pledge.
Council Member Alan Swank proposed combining rules seven and eight to include the Pledge of Allegiance as the second step in the agenda. Under the current rules, meetings begin with opening procedures, then move through the order of business, starting with establishing a quorum and approving minutes.
During the Jan. 12 council meeting, Swank said his goal was to “add formality and tighten up the meeting structure,” not to change the council’s work, but simply to adjust the order of how meetings begin. After the debate drew national attention, including comments from Vivek Ramaswamy, Jay Edwards and other Republican lawmakers on social media, Swank said he hopes those using the issue for political gain will reconsider their motives.
“This isn’t about the president of the United States, this isn’t about Congress,” Swank said. “This isn’t about anything but your neighbor and how you want to treat people and be treated, particularly the least among us.”
Council Member Michael Wood, a Quaker, said he was “very against it” during the Jan. 12 meeting for three reasons: article of faith, the performative nature of the pledge and discomfort in the current political climate. Wood said he felt like Swank was “just adding steps to add steps.”
“It doesn’t change how we do things,” Wood said. “It was funny because we got a letter from the woman that runs the VFW Auxiliary, (telling us to) go back to saying the pledge. We’ve never said the pledge, so we’re already back to what we were doing, so it felt like, ‘why are we adding this right now?’”
Council Member Jessica Thomas said she did not want to introduce “religion or loyalty pledges into local government.” Council Member Paul Isherwood, an immigrant who became a citizen four years ago, pointed out the pledge’s history is complicated and tied to anti-immigration sentiment.
These are sincere concerns, personal concerns, and they deserve to be heard.
The First Amendment exists to protect exactly this kind of disagreement. It protects not only the right to speak, but also the right not to speak. It protects the right to show patriotism in your own way, and it protects the right to refuse a ritual that feels like it belongs to someone else’s version of patriotism.
I’m not here to tell anyone what to do. The point isn’t whether someone should or shouldn’t say the pledge. The point is that we’ve turned something small into a public test of loyalty, and it’s distracting us from the real work of local government.
The Athens city budget is a reminder of how serious the council’s work is. The city manages more than millions of dollars across various funds, including internal service funds, medical claims, community grants and utilities.
These council members clearly care about this work. They ran for office knowing the time and responsibility it would take to serve. Reciting the pledge doesn’t change how they do their work, it does not change how they vote or carry out their responsibilities, and it doesn’t affect the way money is spent or services are delivered.
And yet it has become the center of the debate.
Housing, public safety, infrastructure and community services are the problems that deserve our attention, and the kind of energy this pledge debate has consumed.
I’m not saying we should stop talking about the pledge. I’m saying we should talk about it in the right context and remember what our city council is actually responsible for. The council is not a ceremonial body; it’s a governing body. And the work they do matters far more than what happens at the start of a meeting.
Abby Waechter is a senior studying strategic communication at Ohio University. Please note the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Have something to say? Email Abby at aw087421@ohio.edu.
