The change in control of Congress has resulted in an important
by-product: the busting of the right’s ideological stranglehold
over the definition of patriotism and
”
American values.
”
To sing from the conservative song book, competition in the
marketplace of that
idea has been thrown wide open. Our values will ultimately be
stronger for it.
The change in control of Congress has resulted in an important by-product: the busting of the right’s ideological stranglehold over the definition of patriotism and “American values.”
To sing from the conservative song book, competition in the marketplace of that idea has been thrown wide open. Our values will ultimately be stronger for it.
This renewed dynamism in the evolving American identity was brought home in a recent column by syndicated writer Dennis Prager, in which he took umbrage at the decision by Congressman-elect Keith Ellison of Minneapolis, who is poised to become the first Muslim member of Congress, to take the oath of office with his hand on a Koran instead of a Bible.
“America, not Keith Ellison,” wrote an outraged Prager, donning the mantel of cultural arbiter, “decides what book a congressman takes his oath on.”
Is that so?
Nowhere is it inscribed that the use of any book, bible or otherwise, is required for an oath of office. That is purely a matter of custom, and Ellison is entitled to take his oath of office in any manner he chooses.
In fact, Article VI, Section 1, Clause 4 of the Constitution is rigorously secular: “Representatives,” it reads, “shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
With no Constitutional argument, Prager, who once compared the ACLU to the Taliban, takes a different tack:
“(Ellison) should not be allowed to do so,” he writes, “not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization.”
And how does it do that?
“It is an act of hubris,” Prager writes – unlike his own claim to speak for America, evidently. “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.”
Prager has the argument exactly backwards.
As Bill Maher said, in this country we put our hand on the Bible (or the Koran) and swear to uphold the Constitution – not the other way around.
It seems to me that if we are to be required to place our hand on anything in taking an oath of office, it should be the Constitution itself.
Ellison’s choice is unlikely to offend many constituents. Minnesota’s Fifth district is one of the most liberal in the country. The seat was previously held by Marty Sabo, the very mold of the staid, progressive Scandinavian for which that state is famous. Going from Sabo to Ellison, 43, a Sunni Muslim convert at 19, is a bit of cultural whiplash, but Ellison will continue the district’s long progressive tradition.
Ellison’s real problems have stemmed from accusations that he was once too close to the Nation of Islam and its leader Louis Farrakhan, whom he has since renounced, and also of being a tool of the Council on American-Islamic Relations – CAIR, in that view, being a vast Islamic conspiracy giving aid and comfort to Islamist radicals.
It is all reminiscent of the 1960 charge that Catholic presidential candidate John Kennedy was a talking horse for the pope.
But it is a measure of Ellison’s broad appeal that he was endorsed by the American Jewish World newspaper of the Twin Cities over a Republican Jewish opponent.
I met Ellison when I was a journalist in Minneapolis in the 1990s. I found him to be a bright, conscientious young lawyer deeply involved in the politics of his North Side neighborhood – hardly an enemy of the state. The worst you can say about him is that he was a politician from the start.
The real issue is that Ellison lays bare our deep national ambivalence towards Muslim Americans – his success suggesting an evolution, discomfiting for some, in the meaning of “American values.”
When CNN host Glenn Beck asked Ellison on Nov. 14: “Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies,” Beck was speaking for many ill-informed, possibly bigoted, Americans. Ellison did not take the bait, and his reply spoke for millions of Americans fed up with the jingoistic grip on our national identity.
“The people of the Fifth Congressional District know that I have a deep love and affection for my country,” Ellison said. “I don’t need to prove my patriotic stripes.”
