awfully absent from school during the time he refuses to comply with such requirements and regulations, and any person having legal or actual control of such child shall be liable to prosecution under the provisions of this article for the absence of such child from school." 3 This parent or guardian is then in jeopardy of bein!
             g given a fine not to exceed $50 and jail term not exceeding thirty days.
             This, however, fueled a few sparks, especially among some relatively religious sect of people. Namely, the sect was the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is a division between them and Catholicism. The Witnesses believe in God, as do regular Catholic Christians do, but they strongly believe that the "obligation imposed be law of God is superior to that of laws enacted by temporal government." 4 Basically, they feel that laws made by mere mortals can't be obeyed when a law of God contradicts it. Their definition of laws from God comes from a very literal and precise interpretation of Exodus, Chapter 20, verses 4 and 5 5, which says:
             Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of
             anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
             is in the water under the earth; thou shalt now bow down thyself to
             They feel that the flag stands for, or is a symbol, which directly contradicts their view of this message from God. For this reason they refuse to salute the flag.
             The boy, Walter Barnette, was taken out of class when he refused to stand for the pledge of allegiance. He was accused of disrupting the class, of being obnoxious, and of being a threat to national security. No matter how much of an overreaction this was, we have to remember this happened in the year 1943, about the time the Second World War broke out and at a time nationalism in this country was running high.
             He belonged to a family of firm-believing Jehovah's Witnesses.
             ...