Our NATIONAL ANTHEM is recorded in SPANISH and AMERICANS are SHOCKED and HORRIFIED?! Why? Do the words mean less in another language than they do in ENGLSH? Are the people who are shocked the same ones that think GOD speaks KING JAMES ENGLISH?
The STAR SPANGLED BANNER is a poem that tells the story of a battle observed by FRANCIS SCOTT KEY in 1814. The words were written to the tune of a well known, contemporary drinking song. They slowed the tune down to a ballad and it caught on quickly because everyone had swung a sloshing tankard with the old words.
So our Nation's SACRED HYMN owes it's tune to drunken singing. Can we really be so high and mighty about the language it's performed in? There really is no room for XENOPHONIA in a land filled with people who learned to speak ENGLISH when they immigrated to this country. Very few of our ancestors would recognize the language we speak today.
Anytime our SYMBOLS become SACRED in themselves, we run the risk of losing sight of the FREEDOMS they stand for. In any language, our FREEDOMS are worth memorializing.
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