In Virgil Goode's America, no room for Muslims

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Thu, 12/21/2006 - 6:00pm.

About a month ago, I wrote about how CNN can't decide whether Rep.-Elect Keith Ellison is an icon or an enemy. Turns out, some of his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives can't decide either.

In case you've missed the news, Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, also happens to be a Muslim. But it seems that people are having a hard time figuring out that one can be Muslim and American at the same time. Ellison, for example, was born in Detroit, one of the most American cities I know.

But in a letter being mailed out to constituents, U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, a Republican from Virginia, is taking exception with Ellison's decision to have one hand on the Koran as he swears in his oath of office to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. In his letter, he says he can "not subscribe to using the Koran in any way." Then he goes on:

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by voters of that district and 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 Koran."

Grasp the irony? Ellison will be taking an oath to defend the Constitution, the very document that guarantees his freedom to practice any religion he chooses, or none at all. The really sad irony here is that Virgil Goode represents a state that helped enshrine religious freedom into our national fabric. Here's another Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, writing in reference to the creation of the Virginia Act of Religious Freedom:

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting 'Jesus Christ,' so that it would read 'A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;' the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

My how times have changed.

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