Traditional American Values

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by hilzoy

Good for Keith Ellison:

“Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he’d take his oath of office on the Koran — especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

“He wanted to use a Koran that was special,” said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison’s 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson’s copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson’s collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn’t the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies — the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.

Ellison will take the official oath of office along with the other incoming members in the House chamber, then use the Koran in his individual, ceremonial oath with new Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “Keith is paying respect not only to the founding fathers’ belief in religious freedom but the Constitution itself,” said Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert. (…)

Goode, who represents Jefferson’s birthplace of Albemarle County, had no comment yesterday.”

Religious toleration is a traditional American value — one that we have not always lived up to, but to which we have, as a nation, always aspired. Good for Ellison for making this point so vividly. (And note that if he asked to use this copy “early in December”, it’s not a response to Goode, whose outburst came later.)

19 thoughts on “Traditional American Values”

  4. I don’t mean to be pedantic, but isn’t the traditional Muslim view that a translation of the Koran just isn’t the Koran and, therefore, would be a profane book to take an oath over?

  6. Well, Jefferson was very cosmopolitan, and you know what means.
    I think he was a metrosexual, too. Well, an agrasexual. He hated the cities.
    Except for Paris, the traitor.

  7. KCinDC: You are correct, sir – Ellison is affiliated with the Nation of Islam, IIRC.
    According to Allahpundit (grain-of-salt alert), a Koran is not technically a Koran unless it is written in Arabic, so Prager and Goode should quit their bitchin’.

  8. The earliest (that I heard) protest against Ellison using a Qu’ran for his swearing-in was Dennis Prager’s comments on November 28. This may have been what sparked Ellison’s decision to ask the Library of Congress for a copy with some history behind it – Prager’s comments were really very ugly and very anti-American, and were greeted with appalling enthusiasm by bigots on the right.

  10. As I recall, Christianity also had a little bit of a historical dust-up regarding the issue of translating its holy book.

  11. As far as I know (which isn’t really very far), swearing on the Qu’ran isn’t an Islamic tradition at all. This whole thing is Ellison, justifiably in my view, trying to merge Islamic and American traditions. It’s all symbolism, and a Muslim wouldn’t consider swearing on an English translation any more profane or less binding than swearing on an Arabic copy, since it isn’t a gesture that has the same meaning to them as it does to us.
    As for Keith Ellison and the Nation of Islam, I have never seen any evidence that suggests that he was ever a member of it. He certainly isn’t now, and is an orthodox Sunni.

  13. Cleek: i was wondering where CB had run off to. turns out he’s over at Bizzaro World, advocating the bombing of an Arab TV station.
    I presume that CB knows he’s advocating that the US commit a war crime. I wonder if he cares?

  15. From the Bill Roggio article CB links to:

    While the Iraqi soldiers and interpreters want al-Zawraa shut down, members of the U.S. intelligence community disagree. According to a military intelligence officer serving in Iraq, U.S. intelligence doesn’t want to shut al-Zawraa down as it provides intelligence on the insurgents activities. When I asked senior American military and intelligence sources about shutting down pro-jihadi websites in the past, they expressed the same sentiment.

    Why do senior American military and intelligence sources hate America?
    The LA Times has more on Al Zawraa.

  16. CBird’s comment to his own post:
    The ones that incite violence should be snuffed out, particularly those that exhort Sunnis to kill your fellow Americans who are putting their lives at risk to make Iraq a better place.
    and CB is himself inciting violence, so …. ?
    I mean, CB has long since lacked a certain self-awareness, but … wow, just, wow. I’m speechless. [wordless?]

  18. Despite Republican protests, first Muslim elected to Congress insists upon swearing in on a Koran THOMAS JEFFERSONS Koran.

    As most people realize by now, the awesome melting pot of America recently progressed greatly when new Democratic Representative Keith Ellison was recently appointed by his constituents in the great State of Michigan to become our natio…

  19. Our individual futures, as well as the future of our nation, will be strongly influenced by our understanding of the power of values for good or bad, and what we can do to nurture the right ones in ourselves and in others – in family life, in our schools, in political leadership, in the administration of justice, in domestic and international business, and in other aspects of our daily lives.
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