How about if it is not a religious book? But even so, can someone seek protection for their religion if their religion is in direct conflict with The Constitution? If a religion tells it’s adherents to kill all others, would that still be protected. Is there any lengths a hypothetical religion may go to which we may see it not only as an affront to our society, but a direct threat to it?
Actually, that’s pretty much already been ruled on. SCOTUS has determined that if it’s illegal for everyone to do it, then it doesn’t matter a wet slap what your religion says, you don’t get a free pass from the government.
So, then what do we do if this book an office-holder-elect wants to swear on puts forth such ideas? If we allow it to happen do we not make a mockery of the entire oath of office? Or The Constitution itself?
Again, by selective quotation (“Cherry picking” is, I believe. the mot de trop around these parts), that could well be the Bible.
Magellan, though there have been times when your stance and style have led me to consider you something of an arrogant asshole, I do get the point you are making. And the fact that you are not targeting the Koran per se, but some hypothetical book considered holy by someone whose principles are indeed antithetical to the Constitution and “American values.” (Which I think do indeed exist, but which are not what those who use that phrase usually mean by it.)
IMO: that’s a bridge we should cross when we come to it. When George Lincoln Rockwell wins an election, we can decide if he can swear his oath on Mein Kampf. Or if a Whateley scion from Arkham wins the 1st Mass. district race, and wants to swear on the Necronomicon. (The question of what exactly he might place on the book is also relevant! ;))
Appropriate cherry-picking can show up the Bible, the Koran, and presumably the Book of Mormon, the Granth, the Zend-Avesta, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, or anything else someone holds holy, as being contradictory to the Constitution. And for those which I have read much of anything in, the basic principles espoused are not contradictory in that manner.
Finally, pace Jodi, the actual document that ought to be used if the principles of the FF are at issue is L’Encyclopedie. But, quite frankly, while I understand Magellan’s defense of what he understands Prager as saying, I’m with Lemur – the key to why oaths (or affirmations) on anything are not only valid under “no religious test” and “no law regarding an Establishment of Religion” but to be encouraged, is in the function they have in a person who believes in some religion to demonstrate the solemnity of the oath.
And, of course, if Prager is indeed right, then the first and most important thing that needs to be done is to eliminate all references to liberty and freedom of conscience and action from our national symbols and documents, since that is not a Biblical value in the sense the “American values” contingent uses the term.
I’d say we already do. In the OT, God tells the Jews to go out and slaughter lots of people who aren’t Jewish, including such things as smashing babies against the rocks. Then there’s the whole business with the Angel of Death and Egypt, and there’s plenty more.
I think the difference is that the bible is and has been part of the culture of the country. Even predating the country. There is an understanding that if the bible is invoked that no one is advocating smashing babies against rocks. Another book, from another culture that has not been part of us for so long does not enjoy that common understanding. Those books may very well be understood within those cultures, while sections of the bible would cause people great alarm. If I was the person with the bible trying to invoke it in a culture that did not have great familiarity with it and the people there objected to it based on select passages like the killing of babies, I’d have to understand their point. It would then be incumbent upon me to explain how I read/accept such passages and to use that, and time, to get them to see that it is not a thing to panic over.
But has Ellison not shown what he believes through the causes he’s supported (and through the causes he hasn’t supported)?
I wholeheartedly agree… WTF? If you want to be sworn in on a copy of the Amazing X-Men, that’s your perrogative. It’s called the freedom of f’ing religion, mo-ron.
Of course! That’s why all 300 million of us have come to agree on the American Standard Interpretation of the bible. I’m glad we finally settled all those niggling questions about what it really means.
:smack:
I can’t imagine the prop used in the swearing in has any effect on the way a public servant will execute his office. Regardless of how much personal connection somebody feels to his or her sacred book, the oath is still entirely dependent on the character of the person who’s making it. I have no doubt that there are many Christians who’ve broken a promise that they “swore to God;” I can’t believe there’s a shortage of Muslims who’ve done the same. Oaths are as solemn or as frivolous as the people taking them - no more, and no less.
Yep. Happened yesterday, in Pahrump, Nevada.
Then everyone sang Kumbaya and vowed to kill all the unbelievers.
I may have sworn on the Bible but I had my fingers crossed behind my back so it doesn’t count. Nayh nayh.
Magellan, you’re hung up on this “What if he swore on Mein Kampf” business.
I imagine what you’re asking, should we consider an oath taken on “Mein Kampf” a valid oath or affirmation of office? If we don’t consider it a valid oath/affirmation, then they candidate cannot assume office.
But because we allow affirmation, the answer is obvious. Any oath taken on some holy book or relic that the majority of us don’t consider holy is exactly equivalent to an affirmation.
The idea that Muslims must be excluded from public office unless the swear on a Christian bible is ludicrious, and–if one were a believing Christian–blasphemous.
I’m an atheist. The Bible was written by human beings a long time ago. It has no holy significance to me. What the fuck would be accomplished by passing a law forcing me to swear an oath on the Bible? If my simple affirmation isn’t good enough, then how the fuck can an oath on what I consider to be a pretend religion be good enough? If I’m the kind of person who will lie when I affirm to uphold the constitution, why would I quiver at the thought of offending Jesus Christ?
Requiring me to swear an oath on the Christian Bible would be a violation of my religious freedom, it would establish Christianity as the state religion of America. If you can’t see that this is in direct conflict with establishment clause of the First Amendment, I don’t know what to tell you.
As for your contention that the oath is not for the oathgiver, but rather for the constituents, and the constituents should be the ones to choose what oath an officeholder should give, well we already have such a process, it’s called voting. If the voters don’t want a NeoNazi swearing oaths on Mein Kampf, the time to prevent that is during the election. This is why we must force everyone to swear on the Christian Bible, because otherwise NeoNazis will take over America?
We’ve got two scenarios here. Either the Nazi considers himself bound by the oath on Mein Kampf, or not. If the Nazi considers himself bound by the oath, then when he swore on Mein Kampf to uphold the Constitution, we’ve trapped him! He now has to uphold the Constitution! Fascist takeover averted, whew! The other scenario is that despite his oath on Mein Kampf to uphold the Constitution, he’s going to subvert the Constitution. But how the fuck would requiring him to swear on the Christian Bible help? Y’know, if a cryptofascist secretly got himself elected to public office, and the only thing standing between him and his fascist agenda is to put his hand on a Bible he doesn’t believe in and pretend to swear an oath he considers non-binding, well, what the hell kind of a Nazi would be foiled by the neccesity of a little lying? If he’ll swear a lying oath on Mein Kampf, he’ll swear a lying oath on the Bible.
Do you understand? These oaths of office are meaningless, they mean absolutely nothing more than an affirmation…unless the oathtaker believes the oath does.
Is this like “if we put the words ‘under God’ in the pledge, we’ll be able to rat out those commie bastards?”
According to this generally conservative news source, the question is moot, because no members of Congress swear the oath on the Bible. So some people have been getting their knickers all twisted over nothing!
This is what I was trying to say. The purpose of taking an oath is to make it extra-primo-binding on the oath-taker. That’s why (as discussed earlier) some people, and some Christians won’t take oaths – “I said I would do it and that’s good enough.” But if you want to add some “May fire rain down from heaven and burn me to a cinder if I should ever fail!” mojo – then you want to be using the faith of the oath-taker. You want to bind the guy with his own rope, as it were, because that’s what he himself will deem himself bound by.
The thing that he’s promising to do – buy 10 lbs. of Girl Scout cookies, go on a crusade, remain true and faithful to one person for the rest of his life, uphold the Constitution – doesn’t matter. The oath is a way of saying “I promise to do this” and the inclusion of the religion of the swearer is a way of saying “I really mean it!” The thing sworn upon has no relation at all to the thing sworn to be done. At best, you can theorize some situation where the thing sworn upon and the thing sworn to be done conflict – I swear on the Bible to steal, when the Bible says thou shalt not steal. But IMO then we’re talking about the sort of unrealistic hypotheticals that reduces a discussion to pointless navel-gazing, since it is difficult if not impossible to think of one single tortured scenario where that would be a problem.
Nothing here threatens the US Constitution.
In fact it is theoretically possible that all these points can be incorporated into the US Constitution through amendment, is that not true? It is quite possible to affirm to uphold the constitution while wishing to change it through the process set out in that document. Nothing in the bible suggest that a people should seek means to overthrow the law of the people through revolution, while if I may cherry pick, the previously quote Romans passage clearly requires Christians to obey the law of the land and thus supports the US Constutution.
If I may cherry pick again, The Koran explicitly does not recognze the value of majority rule and encourages its followers to use violent means against a majority.
From the Koran
I would challenge anyone to find a passage in the Koran that would give comfort to the US Constitution to contradict the above passage.
I don’t know about Mein Kampf, but the writings of Lenin are subversive.
For example The State and Revolution
Wheras the works of Lenin no longer seem to challenge the US, there a few people who are using the Koran for justification to violently attack or attempt to attack America from within . To use the same book to affirm upholding the US Constitution is ironic.
And there are people using the Bible to do the same thing. The Christian Identity group Aryan Nations, for example, originally had as its goal the secession of five Northwestern US states to establish an Aryan homeland. Should that prevent people from swearing the oath of office on the bible?
It is NOT ironic.
Does Ellison want to establish Islam as the state religion of the United States? Does he advocate repealing the Constitution and imposing Shariah law?
The argument that all Muslims MUST and DO advocate Shariah is ludicrous. Yeah, some do…fuck, for all I know maybe even most of them do. So the fuck what?
This pants-wetting is pathetic, and the pretense that the pants-wetting is because Ellison is swearing on the Koran is pathetic. The real reason people are pissing their pants is that Ellison is a Muslim, and they’re convinced that Muslims are all terrorists who want to destroy America.
He’s not promising to obey the Koran during his oath of office. The contents of the Koran are irrelevant except to the voters in his district.
This controversy is simply unbelievable. “What if Ellison tore the throat out of a baby and annointed himself with baby blood as part of his oath?”
If you want to argue that being a muslim (or atheist, or jew, or hindu, or mormon, or what have you) should disqualify a person from holding public office in the United States, feel free to argue that point explicitly. Too bad you’d need to shred the sacred Constitution of the United States and repeal the first amendment to protect America from the dread spectre of non-Christians participating in the public sphere.
Well, that sounds like something out of The Aristocrats, and since aristocracy is against the Constitution…
Uhhh, can I get a window seat?
I do not know. I’ve been discussing a hypothetical. To your question though, it seems what one would need to determine is 1) to what degree (0-100) is the Koran in Conflict with The Constitution? and 2) Specidically what does Ellison believe. Number 2 being the more important one IMO.