Councilman Jay Wenk took heat from an audience member at a meeting of the Woodstock Town Board last night for his longstanding habit of sitting during the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, the Daily Freeman reports. According to Wenk, he's not going to start standing and reciting until President Barack Obama repeals a slew of Bush-era injustices:
"My stated purpose in not making the Pledge of Allegiance is my public protest against the constitutional infringements that both George Bush has made and our current president has not rescinded, like habeas corpus and like the warrantless wiretapping," Wenk said. "I started making that protest while Bush was around," he said. "I’'m continuing it until the president rescinds those constitutional encroachments. To be silent, to me, would be to be complicit and to accept the status quo and I refuse to do that as a veteran, as a person. As a citizen it's outrageous."
