So, if this concept applies that a representative can take the oath on any book he/she wishes...
Does that include Wicca?
or
Mein Kampf?
or maybe Mad Magazine.
Yes.
Using a Bible to swear upon is a tradition, not a provision.
One could affirm on Margaret Murray's "God of the Witches", an Empire Strikes Back DVD, or nothing at all (as Theodore Roosevelt did).
"So, if this concept applies that a representative can take the oath on any book he/she wishes...
Does that include Wicca?
or
Mein Kampf?
or maybe Mad Magazine."
LOL - Where does it stop??
They just stand there.
Did you imagine it to be otherwise?
LOL. But it's Cheap!
I believe that representatives do not have to take an oath on ANY BOOK. I don't trust this Ellison and I hope the people of Minnesota wake up and kick him out.
This would be appropriate if nothing else.
President John Adams didn't take his presidential oath on the Bible.
Just saying. He had a selection of documents, say the Constituition, the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence, ect. that he used instead.
None of them explicitly permitted lying for personal advantage or the propagation of a false religion, as does the Quran.
Sure. And the beautiful thing about it is we're allowed, Virgil Goode included, to treat it as silly, disloyal, or whatever.
We may yet see a day when some district, one that like Ellison's is not representative of the U.S. as a whole, elects someone who takes the oath on something Wiccan, and we'll probably see the same outcry.