Ten Commandments judge: Congress should refuse to seat Keith Ellison

posted at 1:22 pm on December 13, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Actually, he might be going quite a bit further than that. I can’t tell if he thinks it’s the oath that should be the litmus test or an adherence to the Koran independent of the oath. How would he come down, I wonder, if Ellison agreed to swear on the Bible for symbolic reasons but remained a true-believing Muslim?

The Islamic faith rejects our God and believes that the state must mandate the worship of its own god, Allah…

Islamic law is simply incompatible with our law. Jaafar Sheikh Idris, founder and chairman of American Open University, a radical Islamic school that has received funding from suspected al-Qaida sources and which supports Islamic law, recently stated that “Islam cannot be separated from the state,” and that no Muslim elected to Congress or the White House can swear to uphold the United States Constitution and still be a Muslim, because the law of Allah as expressed in the Quran is supreme. Idris was recently deported for his illegal activities. While we certainly disagree with Idris’ radical extremism, he at least knows what Islam is all about!…

Our Constitution states, “Each House [of Congress] shall be the judge … of the qualifications of its own members.” Enough evidence exists for Congress to question Ellison’s qualifications to be a member of Congress as well as his commitment to the Constitution in view of his apparent determination to embrace the Quran and an Islamic philosophy directly contrary to the principles of the Constitution. But common sense alone dictates that in the midst of a war with Islamic terrorists we should not place someone in a position of great power who shares their doctrine. In 1943, we would never have allowed a member of Congress to take their oath on “Mein Kampf,” or someone in the 1950s to swear allegiance to the “Communist Manifesto.” Congress has the authority and should act to prohibit Ellison from taking the congressional oath today!

He mentions that Ellison was supported by CAIR and spoke at the same NAIF conference that featured speakers from American Open University, but I don’t think he’s trying to cast him as a radical; rather he’s trying to erase the distinction between radicals and non-radicals entirely insofar as both groups believe in the supremacy of Islamic law. What he’s really asking is whether Muslims who take their faith seriously can, in good conscience, sincerely agree to uphold the religious clauses of the First Amendment. Which is not a little ironic.

And of course, it’s a square violation of the religious-test clause. He’d counter that he has two other clauses on his side — the qualifications clause, which he mentions, and of course the clause mandating the oath to support and defend the Constitution. I don’t know how you’d police the latter, though: if Ellison’s willing to take the oath, then it’s for him to resolve the conflict between his beliefs and the duties he’s sworn to execute. As for the qualifications clause, I’ve always found it bizarrely anti-democratic. If a majority from the congressman’s district wants him there, what business is it of the rest of the chamber if he’s “qualified”? If he’s elected, he’s qualified. But we go to war with the Constitution we have, and the Constitution we have says Congress can set its own qualifications for membership — except for religion, per the religious-test clause. Which Moore, not surprisingly, doesn’t even attempt to address.

More here from dorkafork on Ellison, the oath, and Dennis Prager’s inconsistent arguments thereof.

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