Tonight we Focus on Making America One Again
Tony Perkin’s speech at the 2016 GOP Convention
Remarks as prepared for delivery
I am here speaking tonight in my personal capacity and not on behalf of any of the nonprofit organizations that I lead.
We have gathered here in Cleveland to select the Republican nominee for president. We have accomplished that mission. Donald Trump is the nominee of the Republican Party. I will be voting for Donald Trump in November, and I will urge my fellow Americans to do the same.
Allow me to explain why. Tonight we focus on making America one again. In the pledge that we just recited, we said we are one nation under God. Congress added the words “under God” to our pledge of allegiance in 1954.
The context in which those words were added is instructive. The cold war had begun. As a nation, we faced an existential threat. Children practiced the art of duck and cover in classrooms across the country fearing a nuclear attack.
The threats to our nation’s survival were as real then as they are today. The difference is, President Eisenhower knew where to place America’s trust. And upon hearing a sermon Reverend George Docherty delivered, President Eisenhower prompted Congress to adopt the words “under God.”
The Rev. Docherty had pointed to the words of the first Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Speaking to a divided nation at Gettysburg Lincoln said, “under God, this people shall know a new birth of freedom.” A lot has changed since then, but the source of America’s hope and future has not.
It is found in the same place today as it was in 1863 and 1954 — under God.
Our freedom to appeal to and unite under God has been under steady assault. This is why we must stop those in our government and on our courts who have either in principle or in practice attempted to remove these two words, “under God” and all that they mean from public life.
From his judicial nominees, to his running mate, to the party platform and the policies it promotes, Donald Trump has committed to upholding and protecting this first freedom and therefore our ability as citizens to unite our nation once again under God.
Thank you.
