Muslim Congressman Won't Use Koran When Taking Oath of Office
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.aspPage=/Politics/archive/200612/POL20061201a.html(CNSNews.com) - When he is sworn in as a member of the 110th U.S. Congress on Jan. 4, 2007, Congressman-elect Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) will not take the oath of office with his hand on a copy of the Koran - or any other book, according to a spokesman for Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to the House of Representatives.
Ellison will not use any book during the ceremony, Dave Colling, who served as the Minnesota Democrat's campaign manager, told Cybercast News Service. "Neither will any other member of the House," Colling added, since "no one has ever taken the oath of office in Congress with a Bible, a Koran, a Torah or anything else."
Instead, the members of the chamber are sworn into office as a group, Colling noted. "They all raise their right hands and repeat the oath that's prescribed in the Constitution."
Drew Hammill, spokesman for Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), confirmed Colling's description of the swearing-in ceremony.
"You're actually sworn in on the floor of the House," Hammill told Cybercast News Service. "There are no books present."
After Pelosi becomes the new speaker, she will lead the other members of the House in reciting their oath of office:
"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
The remarks by Colling and Hammill came in response to a controversy sparked on Nov. 9, when the New York Times ran an article on Arab reaction to Ellison's victory in the U.S. mid-term election two days earlier.
"Arab news reports highlighted the fact that Mr. Ellison would probably take the oath of office on the Koran, something which also upset Muslim-bashers in the blogosphere," the article noted. "Some suggested it meant he would pledge allegiance to Islamic law rather than to upholding the Constitution."
On Nov. 11, ABC News reported that Ellison "will be sworn into the House of Representatives with his hand on a Koran."
More than two weeks later, radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote in a Nov. 28 commentary that the Minnesota Democrat "has announced that he will not take his oath of office on the Bible, but on the bible of Islam, the Koran."
"He should not be allowed to do so - not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization," Prager argued. "Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible.
"If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress," he wrote.
Prager's column generated a number of responses, including a reply from Stephen Bainbridge, a professor at the UCLA School of Law, who called the columnist's arguments "fundamentally misguided."
"I don't share Prager's notion that it's necessary for politicians and government officials to 'take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book' in order to 'affirm that some unifying value system underlies American civilization,'" Bainbridge said.
Eugene Volokh, another professor at the UCLA School of Law, also disagreed with Prager by noting that the oath of office "is a religious ritual, both in its origins and its use by the devout today. The oath invokes God as a witness to one's promise as a means of making the promise more weighty on the oathtaker's conscience."
Volokh also pointed to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
"Requiring the performance of a religious act using the holy book of a particular religion is a religious test," Volokh noted.
The dispute has generated "tons and tons of email" to Ellison's office, "none of it in a good way," said Colling.
After the House swearing-in ritual is completed, brief sessions are held so individual members of the chamber can be photographed with the speaker. Most participants at this point reportedly choose to adopt the traditional pose of placing their hand on a Bible.
"That's a mock ceremony, so it's not official," Hammill told Cybercast News Service. "Members can bring in the local press, or they can do a photo op with their family, but that's not their actual swearing in."
