By SnifflesBack when we were kittens, we cats had the occasion to meet Dr. George M. Docherty, the pastor at Washington's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. He was no spring chicken even then, so we were astonished to see his obit just now, in The Washington Post.
Dr. Docherty was pretty progressive in a lot of ways, and not so in others. He was active in the civil rights movement, but he had a ways to go, we think, when it came to women's rights and gay rights. But that's okay. Since he died at 97 we'd be safe saying that he came from a whole 'nuther generation on stuff like that.
However, there's one Docherty legacy with which, we now believe, we must take a moment to quibble: Helping inspire Congress to put "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Post obit quotes him: "I came from Scotland, where we said 'God save our gracious Queen.' Here was the Pledge... and God wasn't in it at all."
You got that right, Reverend Docherty, and that's the way it should have stayed. Here in America we have a pesky thing called separation of church and state. And the Pledge was doing just fine for many, many years until you came along and messed with it.
We never said any of this to the late Dr. Docherty's face, and we're glad that we didn't. Water under the bridge and all that. But we can't help wishing that he'd be remembered for marching to Selma instead of giving us a part of the Pledge that we don't repeat. As someone of more recent political vintage has been known to say, "Thanks, but no thanks."
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