Members of Congress don’t take the oath by placing their hand on a holy book. They stand up and raise their hand as the speaker reads the oath. A “good book” is not used.

This rumor smells a lot like rightwing baloney because it’s their blogs and websites that are spreading it.

We wouldn’t need to know about the CAIR lawyer’s religious preference, if he wasn’t intending to fulfill their governmental court cases. It’s not “which book”, it’s the OATH which commits one to our Nation.

Now I don’t make a secret of the fact that I am not a big fan of Islam. Indeed, it concerns me that more Muslims and Islamic institutions don’t stand up and take a hardline stance against terrorism. And I…

Yes, I’ve decided that I want to take my oath of office on not one, but TWO books that I consider to be very, very important: Action Comics #1, which introduced Superman to the world, and Detective Comics #27 in which the world was introduced to Batm…

This is not a cultural issue and it is deceptive to make it one. This is a religious tolerance issue. The question is whether or not Ellison should be allowed to exercise his free expression of religion. The government should not be compelled to purchase a Koran because Ellison’s religion has insignificant numbers of adherents in Congress. Even if a person looked at it as a cultural issue the United States culture is about religious tolerance.

I see that is Jay‘s point..

I believe most City Counsil meeting prayers are lead by an individual and are left voluntary to all others involved.

True, but when it happens during a group activity that one is expected to attend regularly, it ceases to be a purely individual matter.

But, we’ll have plenty of time to hash it out next time a concrete example comes up. No need to to haggle over hypotheticals.

No matter what pile of paper, holy or not, someone swears on, they can still lie. I say judge Mr. Ellison on his faults, not his religion.

Most definitely. I would even take it a step further and say you don’t even need a stack of papers. If a man has morals and ethics, his word is enough. If he doesn’t, no symbolic act will stop him anyways.

I don’t think freedom of religion ends just because you become an elected official.

Agreed. In fact, I’m very happy any time that I see an elected official stay true to his beliefs on any subject.

I can’t defend City Counsil meetings opening with Christian prayers when the ACLU attacks them, and change my tune when the religion in argument is changed.

I would just caution you to be careful when comparing a group action with an individual action.