Keith Ellison was recently elected to the House as a representative for the state of Minnesota. Ellison is a Muslim convert and, as such, is the first Muslim to be elected to Congress!
Unsurprisingly, Ellison said he'd like to take his oath of office using a Koran instead of a Bible. To the consternation of some...
The Christian Science Monitor has a great article that gives some detail about swearing-in and what the Constitution has to say about it. It explains that Congressmen don't actually take their oath on the Bible in public. They take their oath with their hand in the air (and some may elect to hold a book). Later, if they choose, they may have a private swearing-in ceremony where they use a Bible of some sort. For example, a Jewish Congressman used the Old Testament, and a Mormon Congressman used a Latter-day Saint edition which included the Book of Mormon (i.e. a Quad).
People should be able to swear-in on whatever book they choose. It's a personal choice to have the private ceremony anyway, so the fact that they want to swear on a book at all should tell you that--whatever the book--it holds some personal meaning to them in combination with their oath.
If someone wanted to swear in on Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I'd say they're either taking their oath or the oath-taking process lightly. But if I feel that way so will all their voters...and they'll probably not be re-elected. The system will hopefully fix itself.
The fact that Ellison is a god-fearing person is more telling to me than the fact that he calls his god "Allah."
7 years ago
6 comments:
Nice post, J. I just ran across an article in the papers I'm correcting for Shauna talking about the same thing -- only this paper was raging about how Anti-American it is, etc. It sure pays to know a bit more of the background info -- like the details behind how the swearing in is done, from the Christian Science article.
Anonymous is Marci in this case.
I would really be worried if somebody wanted to be sworn in on Where's Waldo ... especially if his name was Waldo.
Here is the article I mentioned in my comment earlier, for anyone interested. Forwarning: this is a FAR FAR Right Columnist, and the article is inflammatory and full of logical fallacies. The scary thing is how many of the students who read it missed his logical pitfalls, and winded up at his same conclusion. I'm reminded a little bit of "The Children's Story" by the guy who wrote Shogun.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists
/DennisPrager/2006/11/28/america,_
not_keith_ellison,_decides_
what_book_a_congressman_takes_
his_oath_on
My deepest apologies that this is not a link. I haven't figured out how to do that in a comment, yet.
Marci
Here's that link again.
Yea! You figured it out!...or did Dan help you?
Dan...I like the plug!
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