Swearing to Allah

Where to start on Representative Keith Ellison? I don't know anything about the guy except that he's from Minnesota and he's planning to swear into office on Thomas Jefferson's Koran - of course, that alone tells me one more thing about him - that he's clever. Of course, Thomas Jefferson was enough of a comedian to leave us with enough writing to keep bored people debating forever on what his religious and civil rights beliefs were - as my bro-in-law says, you can find a Jefferson quote to suit absolutely any opinion.

Never the less, Rep. Virgil Goode has his panties in a twist over the whole thing (he of the now infamous warning that America must damper immigration to avoid a second Muslim in Congress) adding comic relief to what really just makes sense.

You Greensborians likely remember that not so long ago, there was a big stir about people wanting to swear on the Koran in our local courts. At its most elementary, the placement of one's hand probably doesn't matter - the Jim Bakkers of the world remind us that swearing on a bible or swearing up and down that one's life is led by the bible, doesn't really make a person more likely to be a good, honest, upstanding person. But just in case placing one's hand on a sacred scripture does make a person more likely to adhere to positive values, then I want those people to swear on whatever is most meaningful - bring in a picture of their moms to swear on if that makes them more likely to be the best person they can.

Ellison certainly has chutzpah, and hopefully a very thick-skin, to be the first Muslim in Congress - I hope that his voting record eventually mirrors the backbone his campaign and inauguration have shown.