1st March 2003, 3:58 PM
Indeed, hardly a threat to freedom. I myself always just stood and said nothing when I was younger, that changed eventually when I actually wanted to make such a pledge, but in most schools you are allowed to just not say anything. People don't have the right to not hear stuff that offends them. They only have the right to not care or listen to it.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)