THE BUDDHIST AGENDA

Watch out folks, we're taking over! The 110th U.S. Congress swore in this week. With that comes some awesome milestones. Of course now we have the 1st ever female Speaker of The House (only 2 more rungs of the ladder to go before that glass ceiling is all but abolished! - of course it will be a cold day in hell before I let the NFL have a female referee! but that's neither here nor there) We also now have our first ever Muslim Congressman, Minnesota's Keith Ellison. More importantly we have our first ever Buddhist Congresspersons, Hank Johnson of Georgia and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii. But since fear and ignorance are ever present in our world whenever there is change there is idiocracy close behind. For some reason close minded members of the general public, feeble minded talk show hosts, and ill informed members of our federal government are up in arms over the possibility that these new serving members may have been sworn in on a book other than The Bible. Some have even stated (falsely) that swearing in on The Bible is an unbroken tradition since George Washington and use that in defense of passing a law requiring all public servants to swear in on The Bible and nothing else. The fury gained steam when Muslim Representative Ellison announced his intention to swear in on The Quran, the holy book of Islam. The funny thing is that members of Congress do not swear in on any book. They all raise their hand in a group and get sworn in together. Commemorative pictures are often taken later with one's hand on a Bible but this is completely unofficial and for show alone. Presidents and Vice-Presidents are sworn in with their hand on a book of their choice. While that customarily has been The Bible, there have been notable exceptions. John Quincy Adams intentionally used a legal volume rather than a religious text to further establish the separation of church and state. Theodore Roosevelt used no book at all saying his religion had nothing to do with it. Herbert Hoover, a Quaker, chose to be affirmed rather than 'sworn in' as it is against a Quaker's beliefs to 'swear' in Jesus' name. And this doesn't even delve into the fact that there are several different Bibles that have been used thoughout our history. Jews hold The Tanakh as their holy book (similar to the Old testament of The Bible). Mormons use The Book of Mormon. And the Catholic Bible contains 73 books while the Protestant Bible has 66. As always, the lack of insight and intelligence that governs peoples opinions and mouths astounds and frightens me. For the record: A Buddhist would opt for The Dhamapada if they used anything at all on which to take an oath. Oh yeah, The Quran that Keith Ellsion used for his private ceremonial swearing in Photo? Belonged to Thomas Jefferson.