It’s a battle between the Bible and a secular Constitution.
On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.
At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: “Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?”
Raskin replied: “Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”
The room erupted into applause.
That is so nicely phrased that I wish it fit on a bumper sticker! Poor Senator Jacobs walked right into that.
Took me a moment, but that’s clever. Glad to hear there was applause, rather than cries of “Burn the witch!”
Brilliant! -the best and most succinct expression of the bloody problem that’s yet come down the pike.
That guy is my new hero! (Sorry, PZ.)
Maybe we could tighten it up a little. The last sentence alone would fit on a t-shirt.
Excellent! It’s also worth pointing out to anyone who thinks that our Constitution is based on Christianity that the First Amendment (particularly the freedom to express one’s own beliefs) conflicts with the first of the 10 Commandments (have no other gods before me). I pointed this out to another little God activist who likewise did not reply to my e-mail. (Kristine, you chased another one away!)
Raskin was much nicer than I would have been. And that’s probably a good thing.
What is with this stupid scienceblogs problem. Every time I try to comment here, it fails, and I have to go delete all scienceblogs cookies, and then it works. every time.
Yay! Hooray!
You’re right, it is worth remembering, and bumper-stickering, and shoving in the face of every idiot who needs to know it!
Bravo!
Beautiful and elegant.
re: on a t-shirt: perhaps graphically? (hand on bible/looking up at constitution vs. hand on constitution, looking up at bible/cross?)
Hmm. That probably just takes more space and is less clear.
OT, just to share – I was debating with a YEC and sarcastically suggested that the kangaroos, etc. got to Australia via people bringing them by boat . . . only to find out that’s actually a proposed YEC solution . . .
Anyway, bravo! [sound of applause]
Oh, and I hope this wonderful quote will appear periodically in your Random Quote section, which I always enjoy reading.
But I still find it creepy that we ask our politicians to place their hand on a bible while they swear to uphold things. First, it should not be necessary to ask a politician to swear that they will do their job and know what that entails. More importantly, what is that damn bible doing there anyway? Why not have them place their hand on a hyena skull consecreted by the African god Eshu?
It was a clever remark andit deserves wider distribution but as CM says the real problem is that polictal figures are expected (would it be political suicide not to?) swear on a book of mythology. You have to remember that the real crazies like Frist would lkely respond that he did swear to uphold the bible and the constituion be damned. I also noted a random quote on Pharyngula about pat Robertson saying the constituion is dangerous if used by atehists and non-christians. Yes, he is a completly evil human being and anti-humanist but it appears that there is a sizable bunch of loonies that agree with him.
It was a clever remark and it deserves wider distribution but as CM says the real problem is that political figures are expected (would it be political suicide not to?) swear on a book of mythology. You have to remember that the real crazies like Frist would likely respond that he did swear to uphold the bible and the constituion be damned. I also noted a random quote on Pharyngula about Pat (I hate people)Robertson saying the US constitution is dangerous if used by atheists and non-christians. Yes, he is a completly evil human being and anti-humanist but it appears that there is a sizable bunch of loonies that agree with him.
If I’m ever elected to office, and I won’t be, the people would be wise to have me swear my oath of office with my hand dangling in a trout stream. Now that would be sacred.
Still, that reply by Raskin was brilliant.
But I still find it creepy that we ask our politicians to place their hand on a bible while they swear to uphold things.
I believe the bible-swearing is entirely optional at this point.
As many Christians have alluded to over the years (“you atheists have no morals because you don’t believe in a god”), they need to use the Bible to swear them in because they otherwise could not be trusted. Without the Bible holding them back, it seems most Christians would be murderers, adulterers, pathological liars, idol-worshipers, etc.
Actually, I think that the Bible forbids swearing on the Bible. (“Swear not at all…”) My Jehovah Witness relatives never would swear oaths, at least.
Isn’t there something in the Bible about a woman not holding office or at least not daring to question a man? Somewhere?
Couldn’t he just have quoted scripture at her that would basically amount to “shut up woman, cause God said for you to be silent!”
“Couldn’t he just have quoted scripture at her that would basically amount to “shut up woman, cause God said for you to be silent!””
Sure he could have.
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” 1 Timothy 2:11-12.
Steve S: I have a suspicion that two ScienceBlogs blogs use cookies with the same name, or something equally daft, and every time you post on one of the blogs it overwrites the other blog’s cookie with something invalid.
Have been trying to pin down which combinations of blogs are causing this problem, but so far no luck.
Yes, I know all about the verse in 1 Timothy, but then that exhortation would go for Ann Coulter, too. Which would be quite amusing.
Unfortunately, the story has been exaggerated:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/bal-md.notebook02mar02,0,5258183.story?coll=bal-mdpolitics-headlines
ohhhh SNAP!
That’s the most awesome thing I have ever heard.
I read the Baltimore Sun version and the cited version. I have to say that if the cited version is an exaggeration, it ain’t much of one. The difference is between whether the Senator was addressed directly and whether “some” applauding constitutes a room erupting into applause.
I note that those distinctions seem to fall into the category of “how the observer perceived it” to me.
Well, Raskin quotes himself on his web page Raskin’06 exactly as above. And I guess he was there.
On the bumpersticker/t-shirt front, how about we shorten it to: “Remember when Presidents laid hands on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution?”
Anybody know how to get some bumperstickers printed up?
My apologies for using this thread to test my ability to comment: I haven’t been able to comment from work since we moved to a new server; deleting ScienceBlog cookies didn’t help. If I can post from home maybe it’s something about the firewall at work.
Hmm, it does work from home. Interesting. Back on topic, Prof. Raskin is now one of my heroes! What a great line.
Mr.Raskin has just given the most concise, and to the point, rebuttal to all this supposedly “Biblical Constitution Benchmark” that I could imagine!
If all of these people who think that this country was founded by “christians” who wanted us to unfailingly follow the church would do a little research, they would see that America was founded by contrarions who came here so that NO ONE would tell them what to believe.
Anybody know how to get some bumperstickers printed up?
http://www.evolvefish.com/ has a large number of great bumper stickers.
PZ, I think you should consider editing your post and putting in the actual quote (from the Baltimore Sun story) of the Senator and the Professor’s response.
The problem with what you have posted is that it isn’t entirely accurate, and I’ve seen so many fake e-mail stories about some kid at college using the bible to intellectually defeat a professor, all of which end with “the room erupted into applause,” that when I see that phrase I assume the story is a lie.
The response is the key, and it’s an actual quote. The rest of the stuff is dressing to make it look better, and isn’t needed, because the response looks pretty damn good.
Besides, do people ever really “erupt” into applause?
Besides, do people ever really “erupt” into applause?
Only when the “applause” sign is flashing.
Actually Bill Maher said the exact same thing on his show last year. That time the room DID erupt with applause…
Yes, people erupt into applause. It happened at a County Council meeting I attended yesterday.
Raskin is clever, but an even better, shorter reply is in the Constitution itself. Article VI. I know, I know, nobody ever gets that far. Still . . . you cannot beat ‘no religious test for public office’ as the most revolutionary words ever set down.
I haven’t used cafepress.com myself to have anything printed, but a friend has, and it seems like it might be fairly simple.
Bumper sticker at my CafePress site: “You swear on a Bible to uphold the Constitution, not vice versa”.
You don’t have to swear on a bible. The constitution allows for affirmation of the oath of office, too. That was put in to accomodate Quakers who didn’t swear oaths. Only one president has affirmed (I looked this up once, but I’m too lazy to go google it again.)