Maine high school students create a hullabaloo over 'The Pledge of Allegiance.'

The state of Maine is remote, brutally cold, and now the hub of patriotism controversy.

A group of students at South Portland (ME) High School have created a controversy after adding four words to the daily 'Pledge of Allegiance" request. Specifically? "If you'd like to."

Senior Class President Lily SanGiovanni recites the pledge everyday--but she and her fellow class officers read Maine law and found it's not a requirement for any student to pledge.

The law, verbatim:
A school administrative unit shall allow every student enrolled in the school administrative unit the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at some point during a school day in which students are required to attend. A school administrative unit may not require a student to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. [2011, c. 162, §1 (NEW).]

So, before her daily request to pledge, SanGiovanni added "if you'd like to."

School administrators asked her to stop, claiming it was school procedure, not punishment.

But that hasn't stopped SanGiovanni and her fellow class officers, who claim they're continuing the fight. As she tells the NBC affiliate in Maine, "We are not doing this because we hate America or anything. We are really doing this because we understand there are people who choose to say the pledge and it means a lot to them and for others it doesn't."

"The fact that I was asked to take away the 'If you would like to,'" SanGiovanni said, "I felt like they were asking me to take away the law."