Posted by
Blue Dog Jim on Wednesday, December 06, 2006 4:28:37 PM
Dennis Preager recently touched off a firestorm by suggesting Keith Ellison should not "be allowed" to put his hand on the Koran and swear allegiance to the constitution as he is sworn into office, without the Bible also making an appearance.
Here is my take:
The Bible is not, officially or unofficially, our national religious text. We HAVE no national religious text. If a particular set of religious beliefs, or its trappings, has any kind of favored status within the government or its customs, then the Constitution has been violated.
It's true most of the founding fathers were faithful Christians. So what? Many of them were farmers, does that mean I am compelled to accept farming as the national occupation? What if a non-Christian faith were to grow to a point that it rivalled Christianity in this country (by the way, I'm a Christian). Would our nation be threatened by that? We shouldn't be. Nothing in the Declaration of Independence or Consitiution precludes having, for instance, a Buddhist majority or a Muslim majority in America, and nothing about our government would have to change.
Tradition, by its very definition, does not have to be followed. It's true that for the most part the Bible has been used to swear upon. But I see no reason to treat that as a sacred cow.