"Anything But Straight - A Religious Test"
Does forcing a Muslim to take is oath of office using a bible make sense to anyone?
On the one hand, it makes sense to use only one book as the standard.
On the other hand, if the bible has no meaning for the person taking the oath, what is to morally stop him/her from breaking the oath (other than the ethics involved)? Wouldn't it make more sense to use a moral/religious text that has value for the person taking the oath? Because isn't the oath, the promise a man or woman makes to God (or other diety, or belief system) an individual bond? If I was supposed to make an oath, and I had to take it on a Book of Mormon, the oath wouldn't have any value to me. I don't care if I anger the mormon god by breaking the oath, because the Book of Mormon and the mormon god don't have value to me.
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3 comments:
If a person's word is not enough that they will fulfill the offices duties correctly, then a book of any sort will not assure it.
That's definitely true.
However, theoretically, a promise made on, say, the Bible, would be more meaningful a promise to me than a promise made on a BoM/D&C/etc.
For the people who have a religious leaning that isn't Christian, I could see how they would want to be sworn in using the religious text they adhere to.
I much prefer the old "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye." Everybody has a heart........and a probably also a needle.
Oaths are what they are, they are solemn promises. Some people will take them seriously and others will break them but neither, I'm sure, would give pause prior to making a choice and say to themselves, "Should I be doing this? I mean, I swore on a bible after all." In an earlier time perhaps, when the church was the government.
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