Swearing in

The board that oversees the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here publicly distanced itself on Thursday from a member who recently condemned the first Muslim elected to Congress for planning to use a Koran during the private part of his swearing-in ceremony. In November, the board member, Dennis Prager, a conservative commentator and radio show host, said that Keith Ellison, the newly elected Muslim member of Congress, should give up his post if he could not take his oath on a Bible, which Mr. Prager said was the traditional religious text of the United States.

In its resolution, the council’s executive committee criticized Mr. Prager’s remarks as "antithetical to the mission of the museum as an institution promoting tolerance and respect for all peoples regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.", "Holocaust Museum Rebukes Member for Koran Comment", New York Times, 21 December 2006

Amongst one of the newly elected members of Congress, is a Democrat from Minnesota who happens to be the first Muslim American elected to Congress - Keith Ellison. He wants to use the Quran, not the Bible, in a private unofficial ceremony that will see him sworn into office on January 4 2007. In the US currently, there is some uproar regarding this individual's decision to carry the Quran, not the Bible, into this ceremony.

Irony of ironies: the US Constitution protects religious pluralism. While we ask this elected official to swear to uphold the Constitution, we do so in a manner that asks him to deny his own religious identity. This is the great United States of America.

Meanwhile, a board member of the Washington-based Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dennis Prager, stated this gem: "My entire effort in the Keith Ellison matter has been to draw attention to the need to acknowledge the Bible as the basis of America’s moral values. Judeo-Christian values are the greatest single protection against another Holocaust."

Someone needs to send Mr. Prager a history book. It was the manipulation of "Judeo-Christian values" that allowed the Holocaust to occur in the first place. How ignorant to say that one group's values are the only beliefs that can save humanity from repeating the Holocaust. Prager obviously lacks information regarding Judeo-Christian-Islamic history and needs to refresh himself on the three Abrahamic faiths' parallel teachings and beliefs.

While the US dedicates itself to spreading democracy and religious pluralism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and doing a fine job of that as we can all see, the American administration might want to ensure that it doesn't trample upon those rights on the domestic front.