Virginia Republican Representative Virgil Goode is again in the pages of the USA Today with another letter to the editor. It’s not a very good letter at all.
Ellison, as you might recall, said that he would swear his Oath of Office not on a copy of the Bible but on a copy of the Koran because he is a practicing Muslim. This raised the hackles of some, including Congressman Goode, who penned a letter in response to letters of concern he had received from his constituents.
The problem here is that Goode is just off the mark. Here is the meat of his newest letter:
My letter did not call for a religious test for prospective members of Congress, as some have charged. Americans have the right to elect any person of their choosing to represent them. I indicated to my constituents that I did not subscribe to the Quran in any way, and I intended to use the Bible in connection with my swearing-in. I also stated that the Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall of my office, and I have no intention of displaying the Quran in my office. That is my choice, and I stand by my position and do not apologize for it.
My letter also stated, “If American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.”
I honestly do not see why we are concerned with who swears on what. First, let me note that Ellison’s actual oath – the one that officially makes him a member of Congress – will be taken with all the other new members of Congress, all at once, on the steps of the Capitol. He’ll raise his right hand along with many others and swear to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States of America. Later, many members have a private ceremony where they retake the oath, mostly to take nice pictures to send back to their home districts. That is where Ellison will break out the Koran.
I say, so what? What difference does it make if a member of Congress poses for pretty pictures with a Bible, a Koran, or a Bazooka Joe comic? That’s a matter for the Congressman’s constituents. If they don’t like that Ellison decided to pose with the Koran instead of the King James, that’s something they can voice when he runs for reelection.
I honestly don’t think that most folks care.
What they do care about is whether Ellison is staunchly behind a terrorist-supporting group like CAIR or not. If Goode has an issue with Ellison on anything, it ought to be his support for a group that unapologetically backs the enemies of liberty and progress in the middle of a shooting war.
As far as immigration goes, Goode may have a point, though I’m not altogether sure where his point leads. Illegal immigration is an immense problem, not because it will bring in more Muslims who could get legally elected to Congress but because it has already brought millions of people who have done great damage to the nation already. It’s not Muslims getting elected to Congress that is the real problem. It’s all the folks coming in that we know nothing about and whose motives we have no way to discern we ought to worry about. Goode needs to spend more of his time considering that than he does Ellison’s choice of a photo-op prop.
