Here We Go...
I was hoping I could ignore the brouhaha over Keith Ellison taking his oath of office on the Quran rather than the bible, but Dennis Prager has written a column that is at once very scary and strangely amusing. A couple excerpts:
What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book.
Damn straight. There's this little thing called the First Amendment, Dennis. You might have heard of it. No? I suspected as much.
Ellison's doing so will embolden Islamic extremists and make new ones, as Islamists, rightly or wrongly, see the first sign of the realization of their greatest goal -- the Islamicization of America.
Yes, what the Islamic extremists want most of all is to see a moderate Muslim serving the United States after having vowed to fight terrorism. Sheesh.
[S]ecular officials did not demand to take their oaths of office on, say, the collected works of Voltaire or on a volume of New York Times editorials, writings far more significant to some liberal members of Congress than the Bible. Nor has one Mormon official demanded to put his hand on the Book of Mormon.
Let's see:
1) I can't think of a single atheist (why he insists on calling atheists "secular" is beyond me) who has been elected to a major position yet.
2) Mormons believe the Old and New Testaments to be holy as well.
3) The whole point of swearing on a Bible is to be sure that you don't break your oath. This is why ancient Greeks made sacrifices to the gods while making important oaths, and Romans grasped their testicles. (I swear I'm not making this up. Testes is the root for "testify.") If you want a Muslim, who doesn't believe in the authenticity of the Christian Bible, to keep his oath, why in God's name would you have him swear on a Bible?
