Los Angeles Times Editorial Promotes False Claim About Support for “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance

A September 18, 2005 editorial from the Los Angeles Times, entitled “Under whom?”  propagated the false claim that “most Americans” in 1953, the year before the term “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance, “probably thought the pledge was fine as it was,” without the term “Under God.” The article also went on to say that it was “lawmakers who injected God in 1954 as a McCarthyite sneer at godless communism.” From the editorial:

EVEN BACK IN 1953, the year before Congress added the words "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance, most Americans probably thought the pledge was fine as it was.

[…]                                                                                                 

Unlike lawmakers who injected God in 1954 as a McCarthyite sneer at godless communism, many people now recognize that atheists, agnostics, animists and Buddhists — none of whom believe in an all-encompassing God — can be wonderful citizens.

In fact, according to an anonymous Gallup poll taken in 1953 (scroll to bottom; requires subscription to view, but you may read the results here as well.) , most Americans at the time supported “injecting” the phrase into the Pledge. 69% of Americans supported adding the phrase in 1953, as opposed to 29% against the addition. The poll had a 3% Margin of Error.

The Times’s claim is demonstrably false.