Here’s the real nut of the problem, and what takes it way beyond the “bigoted moron” category:
:dubious: Mr. Prager, the Bible is not that value system, nor the basis for it.
Having the American people choose any prop for the ceremony smacks of ritualistic fetishism. Prager can be in favor of that type of thing, but he’s delusional if he thinks that enshrining it in law doesn’t present serious First Amendment problems.
So whether his argument hinges on the First Amendment or whether it doesn’t, the arguments that reveal his opinion for the muddleheaded demagogery that it is, do.
Shall I bring you another bottle of tequila, Mr. Lemur 868?
Duh. Which we’ve done.
Which is why we don’t have an official state Bible that is handed out for everyone to swear their oaths upon. And we don’t need to require them to put their hand on a Constitution to swear to uphold the Constitution, that’s just retarded. You don’t swear by the Constitution to uphold the Constitution, you swear by whatever you chose, or you simply affirm, to uphold the Constitution, and there’s no need to have a physical copy of the Constitution on hand. No religious test should be required, get it?
Anyone who wants to swear their oath on a religious trinket or by a particular superstitious ritual has to fetch their own religious trinket for themselves. But note that it would vioate the free exercize clause of the First Amendment to prohibit officeholders from clutching a particular idol, or adding “So help me God” to the end of their oath. We have freedom of religion here in America, something some people apparently find difficult to understand.
We are not forced to choose between everyone swearing by one official State Church, or forcing everyone to become atheists and removing all references to religion from the public sphere… No, we have a third way…people, including those who hold elective office…are free to hold whatever religious views they like, and make whatever religious oaths or observations they like. It’s called freedom.
Prager violated my rights once.
Once.
Is that according to the International Swear Board? Or is there a US equivalent?
Dude, the thing is called the Oath** of Office. It’s been quite clearly stated that for the US House, this Oath is given without anyone having their hand on anything. The Oath itself doesn’t contain any form of the words “I swear by the Bible…” or “I swear by the Constitution…”. You aren’t swearing upon anything. The House Oath is
And I believe the “So help me God” would be considered optional. (IANAL, but TORCASO v. WATKINS, maybe?).
He turned me into a newt!
Enginerd, you’ve gotten to be like a son to me and I wanna share somethin’ with ya. I go both ways.
So, have we clearly established that Mr. Pronger is a media whore who would rim a road-kill armadillo if it would get him a 1% advance in market share? Good. Moving right along…
We can expect more of the same, esp. from the likes of Mr. Pronger and his ilk, the second stringers, they ones who wait by the phone with cab fare handy just in case BillO or FoxGnaws happens to need a commentary. There are limits to any ecology, and right wing media whores are no exception, they are competing for a shrinking source of go-juice. This is stage one, competing for attention with shrill, piping cries of alarm and danger.
The next is when they turn on each other. Which reminds me, check to see if I have an adequate supply of popcorn.
Check out this link and see what Dennis Hastert chose to place his hand on during his last swearing-in as Speaker. Oh the humanity!
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/30/koran-bible-prager-ellison/
…to say nothing of what Mark Foley chose to put his hand on!
::: grins, ducks, and runs :::
That still violates the first ammendment. The government can not establish a religion. Saying, “This particular holy book is more important to our nation than any other holy book,” is a pretty clear establishment of religion. Prager hasn’t gotten around the first ammendment, he’s just found another way to get shot down by it.
Yeah, but the rostrum* Hastert grabbed was bigger! 
*“Rostrum” is Latin for “huge screaming throbbing stand for lecture notes,” right? 
Well colour the whole US red with all those red faces of embarrassment. Me too, but then I have an excuse ,I’m not American.
It took six pages debating a topic premised on a falsehood that nobody was able to debunk until Frostillicus joined in. Kudos
Still, better late than never.
I don’t think so. Many public officials, including Presidents, have sworn an oath with their hand on a bible, yet we have not established a state religion. As we can see from the past 200+ years, one does not neceassirly lead to the other.
Not the same thing. Swearing on a Bible - a-ok. Only allowing swearing on a Bible - establishment of religion.
Well, at least he’d be going back to the traditional format for ‘testifying’!
(Note the root word: testes.)
You have a good point. But I view it more as a form of ceremonial deism. Yes, it goes farther than pointing to monotheism, like “In God We Trust”, but if that became a law tomorrow we still would not have a state religion. One can still argue that the book is there to point to one of the underpinnings of the society in a foundational sense—in the past. It needn’t be interpreted to imply adherence to the religion on the part of the person giving the oath. Does it bring us closer to the establishment of a state religion?I’d say so. But that one tiny step on a slippery slope does not a national religion make. No doubt, most posters will disagree with me.
So let me get this straight: A law saying all public officials can only swear on the Bible–perfectly fine, at best a teensy tiny step towards Christian theocracy.
One Congressman swearing on the Qur’an (which would have to be as a photo op, not even the actual official swearing-in)–instant precipitous slide towards the Talibanization of America. We let this guy swear on anything but the Holy Bible, and Nancy Pelosi will be clapped into a burqa within the hour, and they’ll be publicly beheading apostates in every town square in America by next Tuesday.
Since, what, 70% or 80% of Americans self-identify as some kind of Christian, I think we have more to fear from the imposition of Christian Biblical law by the Rushdoonyites and their Jewish “useful idiots” than we do the imposition of Sharia, especially by the actions of one Congressman who is in fact a Democrat and probably a fucking bleeding-heart liberal. Not, you understand, that I think there’s all that much to fear from the Christian Reconstructionists seizing power anytime soon, just that there’s more risk of that than there is that radical Islamists will.