Congressional Oath & the Bible

Congressional Oath & the Bible

Keith Ellison was elected from Minnesota to Congress as the first Muslim to serve in the House. When he announced he would take his oath of office on the Quaran, not the Bible, there was an nationwide outcry, especially conservative Christians. The American Family Association urged it’s 3.4 million members to write their congressman to pass a law requiring a Bible to be used for all oaths of office.

But ReliOathgion News Service reports that he wouldn’t be the first politician to not take their oath of office on the Bible. The News Service reports that in 2002 Hawaii governor Linda Lingle used the Tanakh when she took her oath. Madeleine Kunin selected Jewish prayer books that had been in her family for generations when she was sworn in as the first woman governor of Vermont in 1985. John Quincy Adams took the presidential oath using a law book in 1825 and President Franklin Pierce declined to take an oath at all. He made an affirmation instead as did Herbert Hoover, a Quaker. Theodore Roosevelt used no book, when he took office in 1901. In fact, neither the House nor Senate have any rule about the issue and keep no official record of what books are used in swearing in ceremonies.

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