Oh Noes! Muslim Congressman Plans To Swear In On Koran!

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Enginerd]
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?
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Did I say that people should be prevented from swearing on the Koran ?

Personally, I think the whole affirming/swearing thing is useless. I am reminded of those tobacco company executives before congress.

Referring to the fingers crossed behind the back while taking an oath. Would that be something like Taqiyya in the Koran? Okay, so I’m being ridiculous.

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[QUOTE=clnilsen]
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.
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As has been discussed of late in this thread, Prager’s argument (as I shared after seeing him on TV) does not hinge on the first amendment. He may still be 100% wrong, but the first amendment wouldn’t be the reason.

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[QUOTE=Enginerd]
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.
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I believe this is called the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. Just because all aspects of the bible have been agreed upon it does not mean that some, or most, of them have.

[QUOTE=Enginerd]
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.
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This is well put, particulalry the last part. However, if a person makes it an issue to use a certain book, then that tells us that that book is of more than passing importance to them. No? Possibly of critical importance.

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No, it would violate the First Amendment:

Requiring people to swear an oath on a particular religious book creates a religious establishment. It mandates a state religion. It also violates the free exercise of religion for those whose religion forbids oaths, or oaths by the state religion, or those that simply don’t follow the state religion.

and Article VI:

Please explain why requiring officeholders to swear an oath by the Christian Bible isn’t a religious test? If requiring officeholders to take an oath on the Christian Bible isn’t a religious test, then nothing is.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
I believe this is called the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. Just because all aspects of the bible have (not) been agreed upon it does not mean that some, or most, of them have.
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Just little details like whether the New Testament is part of the Bible or not.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
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.
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Right. So why should we give people swearing on the Bible the benefit of the doubt when we do not for people swearing on the Koran? Correct me if i’m wrong, but the point here is that if someone swears on a text that is in conflict with the Constitution, and they believe the text is in conflict with the Constitution, horrible things may happen (i’m not being sarcastic, just couldn’t think of a better way to put it). So, given that an anti-Constitution congressman would be bad, why isn’t scrutiny of this sort given to everyone?

The answer is twofold. First, as I said, people can generally get a good idea of a person’s politics through what things they support, and also through the inevitable dirt that will be thrown during elections. Secondly, and probably more importantly in this case, there’s laziness. People can’t be bothered to check whether johnny christian has pro-Constitution beliefs. They assume it, but they’re not interested enough or motivated enough to find out. Johnny muslim, on the other hand, is going to be under huge scrutiny given current events. People are more likely to think “hey, maybe he’s one of those muslims”.

My point about this is that the onus to find out if a congressman has any anti-Constitution beliefs is upon the constituent, not the candidate. We’ve already seen that it’s perfectly legal to swear on the Koran. If people (and people outside his own state) think Ellison might be anti-Constitution, it’s up to them to find out. It’s not up to him to prove he isn’t; he has proved himself acceptable by winning the job.

[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
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.
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That’s not what it means. It’s saying that a smaller group of believers will defeat a larger group of nonbelievers in a holy war - as, gosh darn it, it says on that very page.

Clearly and directly speaking about Jihad, eh? When you said cherry-picking, you really meant it, huh?

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[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Magellan, you’re hung up on this “What if he swore on Mein Kampf” business.
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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.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
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.
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I don’t think your conclusion necessarlly follows. If we have a world where one can simply make an affirmation, sans book or symbol, but that person makes the decision to swear an oath, what he swears the oath upon is not immaterial. If it were, he wouldn’t feel the need to choose it to swear an oath upon.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
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,…
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It is Prager’s argument, which I relayed and find interesting. What it does do is eliminate the first amendment argument. Otherwise, I see your point. How would you feel about having all officials swear an oath upon, or to, a stack of stuff: The Constitution, The D of I, Locke’s Second Treatise, Leviathan, and Common Sense? Wold that be okay with you? It eliminates any frirst amendment issue.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
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?
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This is a good argument for allowing people to affirm, sans book. But when they already have that option but then feel a need to swear an oath to a particular book, what that book is becomes important. The candidate himself has madeit so.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
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.
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I don’t think that this is necessarily the case. You’re assuming that belief in something we might find abominable would mean that that person automatically has no moral compass whatsoever; that they couldn’t take their word seriously. I seem to recall atheists on this board arguing, correctly, that just because someone might not see the world the way everyone else does, that does not mean that they can’t be as morally righteous as any other person. Do you think that there are no people out there that might refuse to lie about or denounce thier faith even at the risk of death? Is everyone who might like to see Sharia Law instituted around the world incapapble of arriving at that position with conviction and his personal honor intact. I truly be interested in hearing your response.

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Do you understand? These oaths of office are meaningless, they mean absolutely nothing more than an affirmation…unless the oathtaker believes the oath does.
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I understand fine, thank you for asking. But let me ask you this so that I might understand you even better. If an oath of office is meaningless and we have the option of a simple affirmation, why would anyone 1) choose to take and oath and 2) do it upon a book that is pretty much guaranteed to generate push-back? Don’y you think it would be because the person finds that book important to them? And therefore, it is NOT meangless to them?

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Balls. Could someone report my post so a mod can fix my atrocious coding?

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[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
Did I say that people should be prevented from swearing on the Koran ?
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I suppose not. Does it make it ironic when a Christian is sworn in on a Bible, or does the irony only apply to Muslims.

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[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Please explain why requiring officeholders to swear an oath by the Christian Bible isn’t a religious test? If requiring officeholders to take an oath on the Christian Bible isn’t a religious test, then nothing is.
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I know you understand the argument because you stated it in a previous post. Yet, you still are arguing as if his point is that the “book” is present at all because the oath taker finds it important. His argument is that the bok should be there because it is what the society finds important. Now you can argue against it on those grounds, but his position simply does not run afoul of the first amendment. Please see my last post to you.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
As has been discussed of late in this thread, Prager’s argument (as I shared after seeing him on TV) does not hinge on the first amendment.
[/QUOTE]

Pardon my inattention, please, but what, in a nutshell, does it hinge upon?

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[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold]
Right. So why should we give people swearing on the Bible the benefit of the doubt when we do not for people swearing on the Koran? Correct me if i’m wrong, but the point here is that if someone swears on a text that is in conflict with the Constitution, and they believe the text is in conflict with the Constitution, horrible things may happen (i’m not being sarcastic, just couldn’t think of a better way to put it). So, given that an anti-Constitution congressman would be bad, why isn’t scrutiny of this sort given to everyone?
[/QUOTE]

Prager’s point is that no one should choose any book. That the book has been chosen by the American people to remind us of the foundations of our society (arguable, yes). He sees it as a tradition linking us back to our beginnings.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
I know you understand the argument because you stated it in a previous post. Yet, you still are arguing as if his point is that the “book” is present at all because the oath taker finds it important. His argument is that the bok should be there because it is what the society finds important. Now you can argue against it on those grounds, but his position simply does not run afoul of the first amendment. Please see my last post to you.
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What the hell is this obsession with there being a prop? It’s not an oath if you use a book and an affirmation if you don’t. It’s an oath if you say “I swear” and an affirmation if you say “I affirm.”

If you simply hold up your right hand and say “I swear…” then you’ve taken an oath.

Which, in case you didn’t notice above, is exactly how it’s done for Congress. There is no Bible! Not now, not ever.

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[QUOTE=kaylasdad99]
Pardon my inattention, please, but what, in a nutshell, does it hinge upon?
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No problem, it’s been difficult to follow. It hinges upon viewing the bible as a founding document, of sorts. If it is, then it is similar to swearing an oath to The Constitution, The D of I, or writings from Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers. The argument would be that they all were, to varying degrees, necessary components to our founding. Which leads to the much argued: to what degree was the country founded on Judeo-Christian principles?

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[QUOTE=Enginerd]
I suppose not. Does it make it ironic when a Christian is sworn in on a Bible, or does the irony only apply to Muslims.
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I haven’t addressed the followers of the religions per se, Only the foundational books themselves wrt to the US Constitution. What would be even more ironic is for a Muslim to swear on a bible. Gee, you just can’t win if you’re a fundamentalist American Muslim. Just chuck the whole religious stuff out of state functions is what I say.

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[QUOTE=Zakalwe]
What the hell is this obsession with there being a prop? It’s not an oath if you use a book and an affirmation if you don’t. It’s an oath if you say “I swear” and an affirmation if you say “I affirm.”

If you simply hold up your right hand and say “I swear…” then you’ve taken an oath.

Which, in case you didn’t notice above, is exactly how it’s done for Congress. There is no Bible! Not now, not ever.
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I don’t think that is correct. I think you have to swear upon, or to, somehthng. Otherwise it is simply an affirmation. That is the difference, it is not merely semantics. Now, you certainly could swear without a prop, but you would have to state upon what you are swearing. As far as the “infatuation” I think it simply has been a handy way for people to discuss this issue. And, speaking for myself, I find it interesting philosophically, regardless of it being an actual problem we are confronting in the real world. After all, this is debate board. Not let’s fix the problems in the world board. No snark intended.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
Which leads to the much argued: to what degree was the country founded on Judeo-Christian principles?
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Well, one principle that it was founded on was the already quoted:

So even if all the founders were Christians, they agreed that neither Christianity nor a sect of Christianity would be estabished as the state church, and that everyone would be free to follow their own religion, be it Judaism, Christianity, or whatever.

And how is the Bible a “founding document”, except that some of the ideas in the Bible found their way into US law? You might as well say that Plato’s Republic was a founding document.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
Prager’s point is that no one should choose any book. That the book has been chosen by the American people to remind us of the foundations of our society (arguable, yes). He sees it as a tradition linking us back to our beginnings.
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The book has not been chosed by the American people to remind you of the foundations of your society. No book has. It is perfectly legal for Ellison to swear on the Bible. I would argue to him that to follow the Constitution trumps the Bible in terms of the foundations of your society (seeing as the Constitution* is* the foundation) and say that the American people have chosen to allow a congressman to swear on any book, leaflet, comic, or even nothing, if they so wish. For Ellision to make a free choice of religious item is tradition with regards to the seperation of church and state.

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Blast, that first Bible should bet the Koran. I’m having a bad day. :smack:

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
Prager’s point is that no one should choose any book. That the book has been chosen by the American people to remind us of the foundations of our society (arguable, yes). He sees it as a tradition linking us back to our beginnings.
[/QUOTE]

Prager’s flat out lying then. There is no such choice. The American people do not get to establish Christianity as our state religion, no matter that 90% of Americans are Christians. It is a flat out lie by Prager that every officeholder prior to Ellison has sworn on the Christian Bible. IT IS A LIE.

And thus, Prager CALLS FOR A FUCKING-DOUBLE FUCKING-FUCKING RELIGIOUS TEST TO HOLD OFFICE. Those unwilling to take his religious test should be ineligle to serve in Congress. Atheists, Quakers, Jews, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, it doesn’t matter to him, unless we are willing to violate our religious principles we should fuck off.

Fuck him, and fuck you for arguing that I don’t have a right to participate in the public sphere. And if you unpatriotic anti-Americans who don’t believe in the Constitution don’t like it, feel free to take the next steamer back to Europe.

You lousy corksuckers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes… like yourselves.