I just like these pictures

I don't have a profound or relevant post about this - I just feel good looking at these pictures...The first Madam Speaker and the first Muslim member of congress, with Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran. The politics of divisivness and fear have been vanquished once more. Of course, it never stays vanquished, the battle goes on - but for this moment, we are the kings and queens of the hill.

What is Virgil Goode going to say about THIS?

In a stroke of political genius, Keith Ellison has served an unreturnable ace.

Ellison, as virtually everyone knows, is the newly-elected representative from Minnesota who is a practicing Muslim. In the private ceremony ofter the official swearing in (the photo-op swearing in) he will place his hand on a copy of the Qu'ran rather than a Christian bible. This makes sense to me. He isn't a Christian.

But to hear the noise machine of the far right, you would think he was out to destroy American civilization itself.

Well guess what Dennis Prager, Virgil Goode and all you indignant souls out there...He is using Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Qu'ran. Goode, it must be noted, represents Albermarle County, Virginia - the birthplace of Thomas Jefferson.

Game, set and match to Mr. Ellison.

Swearing an Oath

Those progressive Midwesterners in blue Minnesota elected their first African-American house member on November 7, and he happens to be a Muslim. Keith Ellison is the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. congress from anywhere in this country.

Rep. elect Ellison is a devout and practicing Muslim, and he wishes to take his oath of office on the holy text of his own faith, the Qu’ran. Hey, if we want it to mean anything, then he should take the oath on his own article of faith.

Dennis Prager doesn’t see it the same way I do however. (No big surprise there.)

I have an Uncle Myron who is a lot like Dennis Prager. He is what we refer to as a schmendrik : a fool, worthy only of contempt. (What can I say, we cut to the chase with our definitions.) So it comes as no surprise to anyone that Dennis Prager is sticking his cloven hoof in his mouth over this. Act the fool is what schmendrik’s do best. Catholics have Pat Buchanan, we have this putz. Call it even?

Prager, in his bombastic glory blusters forth that Ellison is undermining American culture itself and if he won’t take the oath on the bible, by god he should not be allowed to take his seat and serve his term.

Can I remind Mr. Prager that oaths need not be sworn, but they can be affirmed instead? Two Presidents of the United States, Franklin Pierce and Herbert Hoover, both affirmed their oaths and bypassed swearing the oath on the bible.

Me, I’m torn between allowing oaths to be sworn on whatever holy text underpins the belief system of the person taking the oath; and another alternative. I would have no problem with a Hindu swearing their oath on the Bagavad Gita or the Upanishads. What’s the problem with a Muslim swearing on the Qu’ran? It would be an apostasy to force participation in any religion in this country that was founded on religious freedom, and forcing an oath be sworn on the Holy Bible, the sacred text of Christendom, is an affront. Jews tolerate it because the first half is all about us. If it wasn’t the Judeo-Christian heritage, don’t think for a second any Jewish hands would swear oaths on that book. It is the height of intellectual dishonesty to pretend otherwise, and Prager knows it. He’s just a putz.

But if he is going to get all pissy about swearing the oath on the Qu’ran, I’m going to have to insist that, as a Jewish agnostic, I have a problem with all religious materials used to swear oaths. Instead, we take all religious texts out of the equation, and everyone swears their oath on the document they are promising to uphold: The Constitution of the United States of America.