From FOXNews:
The American Civil Liberties Union argued a law that some judges said required the state’s courts to use the Bible alone is unconstitutional because it favors Christianity over other religions.
The ACLU sought a court order clarifying that the law is broad enough to allow the use of multiple religious texts, or else declare the statute unconstitutional.
Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway ruled that a witness or juror can take a court oath using a text “most sacred and obligatory upon their conscience,” citing common law and precedent of the state Supreme Court.
The judge didn’t declare the law unconstitutional or rule on whether the term “Holy Scriptures” could be reasonably interpreted to mean any sacred text other than the Bible. But the ACLU still considered the ruling favorable.
“As of today all people can use the holy text of their choice,” said Seth Cohen, an ACLU attorney who argued the case. “We think it’s a great victory.”
Indeed it is! For instance, the next time I’m testifying in North Carolina, I will insist upon being sworn in on a McDonald’s value menu—the Bible of the secular, thrifty Jew.
And, in the unlikely event Al Gore is ever called to testify in North Carolina, he’ll be free to swear on a patch of sod, or—in a pinch, a carbon offset.
Which, come to think of it, is every bit as invisible as the God of Abraham.
It’s like the FAIRNESS doctrine for “religion.” And there’s not a whole lot wrong with that—even if by, say, swearing on a Koran, the witness or juror is committed to swearing to kill any Jew he finds hiding behind a tree, or tossing a sack over the head of any female court member who dares show her face.
I kid the Muslims, of course.
What? CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?
(h/t Hot Air)
Oh, like Algore won’t swear on any one of his books.
I get your point Jeff, but wouldn’t you prefer people swear on something they believe in rather than something they don’t?
I mean shit, if I swore with my hand over Born to Run I wouldn’t be able to lie about anything.
So does this mean politicians have to swear on a stack of waffles?
One question: The court’s decision would let one be sworn in on a copy of “Dianetics”, but would the need for decorum in the courtroom require that the book in question be a hardcover edition?
Themistocles —
I actually have little problem with this—except that it opens up a symbolic convention to an array of texts that could, in the end, lead to a legal redefinition of what constitutes religion.
Which is a good thing, so far as I’m concerned. Because I’d like to see environmentalism given its proper label.
I’d like to take this to mean that this case represented some kind of apex of achievement for ACLU and CAIR, but I spect they have even greaterest victories planned.
I live in Michigan. The last time I was in court I was just asked to raise my right hand and swear.
I chose fucker.
W00t! Bringin’ my copy of the Necronomicon to traffic court.
Make them swear on a copy of the pertinent perjury laws.
I’d choose…
A Confederacy of Dunces
or
Green Eggs & Ham
Nothing matters anymore. We are superior, postmodern creatures. Truth is relative.
Pass the Jim Beam, eh?
Understood Jeff. How about if religions get divvied up into small and large caps by membership?–anything over X million gets into the courtroom. I’m pretty sure Springsteen’d make the cut.
Godless by Ann Coulter. And since I only own the book as an Audible download, I’ll have to swear with my hand on my MP3 player.
Which is all they ever made my atheist ass swear on. And they knew it because I told them their steenking beeble meant nothin’ to me.
I think it might be a good idea to recall that Muslims operate under the theory that falsehoods told to non-Muslims, in the effort to further jihad and the Umma, are a sanctioned part of Muslim theology. With that in mind, one must wonder what guarantee can possibly be inferred from a Muslim’s swearing to anything whatever upon a copy of the Q’uran.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I suspect that at a minimum we must understand that a Muslim’s testimony can neither be relied upon or viewed as dispositive. I’m not even sure a Muslim can be guilty of perjury under the internal consistancy of Islam itself.
Excuse me. “Consistency” is, of course, the correct spelling.
I can imagine the testimony.
Q: State your name.
A: Sam.
Q: Your full name?
A: Sam, I am.
I don’t know that much about Islam but I do know the above chestnut is commonly stated about Jews, usually with malicious intent. I think for that matter you can find Christian theological backing for lying to pagans. I mean these kinds of statements go nowhere, they are prejudicial.
I got into a big pissing contest with Darlene about the sanctity of Jesus H. Christ in the USA some months ago, I don’t want to go there again.
Environmentalism is a religion and Al’Gore is its prophet.
Steve:
Yes. Well. You are free to think that “you can find Christian theological backing for lying to pagans” if you wish to do so. But can you cite me chapter and verse? Statements like yours must be based on evidence; I don’t know of any Christian doctrine stating that falsehood has a positive and permissable utility. Do you? Neither have I ever heard any such thing stated about Jews–again, cite chapter and verse, if you please. The same belief regarding Islam, however, is incontestable.
Prejudicial statements may go somewhere, anywhere, or nowhere. None of that has any bearing on their truth, however. Prejudicial effect is emphatically NOT the test of truth–unless one is prepared to submit to relativism. I, for one, am not.
Betsy: the problem with your position is that finding embarrassing injunctions or laws in any religion is one of the oldest stock in trades for people who are attempting to demonize entire religions. Quoting chapter and verse is not useful because, first, it presupposes that the devotees of a religion obey all of its dictates (no one does), it further presupposes that there are not counter-vailing traditions, and counter-vailing interpretations, which there almost always are.
The upshot of your allegation—as above—is that no Muslim can be trusted. Simple as that. Such a statement goes nowhere, even if a Muslim swore an oath on a copy of Spiderman. I am sure that the world hangs in the balance now that we have to choose between trusting no Muslim and “relativism.” Be well.
So would a neo-Druid swear on a pile of oak leaves, maybe holly?
This is one of those where its interesting to watch people’s reaction.
Steve – If there is a special dispensation in the Bible that allows for bearing false witness under certain circumstances, it should be fairly simple for you to point that out. I have attended Catholic church for 37 years now, and had never heard that. I must have missed that sermon, repeatedly.
I attempt to demonize nothing; I simply make note of a fact. Out of their own mouths comes their falsehood. When we are talking about people swearing upon a body of faith as evidence of their truthfulness, quoting chapter and verse is always and ultimately useful. No Muslim would swear an oath upon a copy of Spiderman. If you don’t know that, you don’t know Muslims. Allah-hu akbar, after all–not Spiderman-hu akbar. There are Muslims whom I trust by virtue of my knowing them, but emphatically not by virtue of their willingness to accept Western notions of oath-taking. Judicial fiat regarding a standard of honesty tells us nothing whatever about the content of the testimony. We are complicit in our own deception if we think otherwise.
Be well, indeed.
Steve —
Islam doesn’t separate church and state. That’s a problem, and Betsy raises an important point. I’ve posted here about Muslim civic and government leaders stating, for the record, that Koranic law supersedes laws of the state. You don’t hear that from Christians and Jews.
You can try to suggest that even raising the concern is prejudicial. Me, I prefer to think of it as something worthy of discussion.
But then, my PC meter has always been on the fritz.
JD: Read The Gospel According to John, Chapter 7, early paras, where Jesus lied to the apostles.
There is extensive commentary on the issue of lying in Christian exegesis.
I don’t have the time or the desire to split hairs on this issue. It’s really rather clear cut.
1. Is it definitionally impossible to trust a Muslim?
2. If yes, is there any amelioration if a Muslim swears on a Christian bible?
Thing being, swearing on scriptural stuff doesn’t actually compel someone to tell the truth. I can’t find the link right now, but I swear I saw that online somewheres.
JD,
You are quite right. In none of Christianity’s doctrinal writings is there an injunction to do anything other than bear true witness. In fact, the bearing of false witness is quite expicitly forbidden. It is not so, however, with Islam.
Jeff: the reason I responded was because Betsy’s allegation was word-for-word identical (with a slight ellipsis) to allegations I have seen from time to time about Jews, made with clear anti-semitic intent. I wanted to underscore that point without, at the same time, accusing anyone of anything.
I do believe that any statement along the lines of, “Colorado Rockies fans cannot be trusted because their Player’s Guide gives them permission to lie to Giants fans” is prejudicial, and therefore useless, but i do not mean to say that anyone who says that thing is prejudiced.
If someone wants to say that Muslims, because of their faith, are not to be trusted in a court of law, then the issue of what they swear on is irrelevant.
I just read those paragraphs in John 7. Like most scripture, the account is pretty sketchy, so there’s no way to know what all the circumstances were, and there’s no way to know what Jesus’ motives were; he never explains himself, AFAIK.
But it would be a tough sell to say that we can extrapolate that one incident into a Christian doctrine that approximates taqqiyeh.
I’d be willing to believe that The Average Rank-and-File Muslim-American would not be more likely to lie in court than anyone else, taqqiyeh notwithstanding.
And those Muslims who would justify their lies as a religious duty would tell the lies regardless of which book was used to swear people in.
Happy: I hope you had your right hand on something sacred when your wrote that.
Dicentra:
Then we are on the same page.
You don’t wanna know.
There is a section of the bible that tells us that the value of Pi is 3. You gonna swear on that? Can’t trust that shit.
Whats the concern that you’re raising have to do with religious law being supreme to civil one?
Well, a couple things.
1. As you know, for many centuries neither Christianity nor Judaism separated church and state, either.
2. I don’t know much about Islam: I find the Koran rather silly, and not the least inspiring, I have known very few Muslims and my personal experiences have been fairl negative, I don’t find their women attractive, I don’t like their food, and I hate what they have done to coffee.
3. For all that, I am a big underdog type person and I will stick up for Muslims just because.
4. To that end I am sure that if there isn’t already, there is some kind of minority teaching or exegesis in Islam that is at least moderately compatible to the modern world we live in, and
5. That that brand of Islam, or something like it, will eventually normalize the Muslim world, including church state separation.
That has nothing to do with the immediate political situation, but, based on the evolution of Christianity and Judaism I think it’s a safe bet.
Steve:
“If someone wants to say that Muslims, because of their faith, are not to be trusted in a court of law, then the issue of what they swear on is irrelevant.”
Precisely. You make my point.
All the world is waiting for you…
If she didn’t object, it’d be ok.
Why would a culture with what, 1.3 or 1.4 billion members be an underdog?
Think about it.
And also they have this thing about dogs anyway.
Ya’ll have a great weekend.
I’m off to North Carolina to see Matt the Marine, and his lovely bride.
Another case for the Supreme Court, obviously. Guess we should just all swear on a copy of the Constitution, fully amended, on penalty of perjury only, since that’s the only reasonable alternative to swearing on the Kama Sutra or whatever else you might consider to be a religious tract.
You too.
Ummah goodness no … this can’t be what Steve meant?
My dog is better than that. My dog doesn’t need to wear a cape.
If I thought any of this had any meaningful effect on reducing the instances of perjury (which is, after all, the very reason an oath is sworn while physically touching a revered religious text), I might actually get worked up about it.
But it doesn’t.
So I won’t.
I demand to be sworn in on a copy of Hooters Magazine.
Hey, you worship what you want to worship…
There’s nothing in the Bible that forbids lying in general, as far as I know.
There’s a strong prohibition against bearing false witness, but that’s a specific (and nasty) subset of the larger set of all possible lies.
The incident in John 7 does not involve bearing false witness, and is thus irrelevant to this discussion.
Telling your wife that her new pants don’t make her look fat is probably okay, but telling the divorce court that your wife used your children for Satanic rituals is not.
I don’t like the direction the thread has taken, so I’ll stay out of it.
What I think is, doesn’t the ACLU actually have anything more serious to worry about? Like, the lack of free speech in schools and universities…
I’d swear on a Perry’s – Chemical Engineer’s Handbook. It is authoritative enough, I tell you.
P.S. I’d swear on a copy of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, if given the option.
well nobody answers me how to start a new thread here??
It helps to be Jeff.
B Moe gets right to the essence: “swear on the appropriate perjury law”. That’s how the lo of the land nails your ass if you’re caught out lying after taking any oath – your religion, philosophy or atheism notwithstanding. The rest is the religion of bullshit.
I don’t know of any scripture that makes allowances for lying, but it’s ironic that James 5 and Matthew 5 both say Christians shouldn’t take oaths.
I didn’t raise any concern. I just made a joke about swearing on a McDonald’s value many to suggest that what is essentially conventional (the symbolism inherent in swearing on a Bible) is being taken as literal, which has the effect of potentially expanding what is considered a “religious” text.
The fact that religious law is supreme to civil law I discussed previously with respect to a German move to potentially indict the Koran. It is a separate matter, but I raised it to suggest that Betsy’s questions weren’t per se prejudicial, and that discussion of them shouldn’t be shut down because they are potentially offensive to Muslims.
Nowhere did I say—or did I suggest that I believe—that Muslims are more prone to perjury than anyone else, given that I don’t have any data to back that up. However, pointing out that their religion is essentially theocratic—and that one of its precepts is taqqiya—is a valid contribution to the discussion, I should think, even if what it does is show that perjury is possible regardless of what book you swear upon.
Which of course wends us back to my original point—that being that a symbolic convention is being ridiculously (but perhaps usefully, for purposes of exploring what, exactly, is “religious”) turned into a literal event, one that we are supposed to believe will compel someone already prone to perjury from reconsidering should they be allowed to swear on their own personal religious text.
May as well just sanction the “pinkie swear.”
Personally, I find it offensive that a Muslim politician and civic leader in Germany would state that Muslims don’t have to answer to state laws that are in conflict with their religious text.
Swear on the graves of your ancestors. ‘cause I wanna see the bailiff lug a bunch of headstones into court.
I understand John Edwards swears on a copy Business Week and the Robb Report…
Making people swear on a Bible is offensive and stupid. Fighting people who want to swear on some other religious text is offensive, stupid, and futile. And it all distracts from the original ideal which is to have people tell the truth. Like pledging to the flag, it’s a formality that has gained more importance than its purpose.
I’m a public notary. If someone swears in an affidavit that they are the King of the Moon, keep J. Edgar Hoover’s clothing in cedar-lined closets for his Second Coming, know that Pete Rose used steroids to maintain his scary hair, and are willing to pay a nominal fee, I’ll stamp and record that document. It doesn’t make the presented facts true, but it formally acknowledges that someone said they are.
It would be wonderful if swearing on a Bible would make it impossible to lie, but I think we’re all grown up enough to know that liars can even bypass the magic powers of King James. Unless, of course, their hand burns off, which is a rare event in modern jurisprudence.
Vell, I want to swear on Mein Kampf…
…or perhaps ze Turner Diaries…
…or Living History…
Nuzzink offensiff dere, ja?
I’m curious. What verses?
I have a technique that makes this whole topic academic: I call it “Stay Out of Court.”
Eh, Steve, that’s not really true. Christianity started out quite separate from the state. (Jesus wasn’t a ruler, Romans threw Christians to the lions, etc..) That it later became the religion of the rulers is kinda irrelevant, the rules themselves are not the rules by which a state should be run. Plus there’s that whole render unto Caesar thing (which can be seen as a recognition of the separation between religion and government)
Islam, on the started as a system of government, Mohamed ruled Medina and Mecca (after he captured it), and the rules in the Koran are set up for this. A religion does not need a rule about taxing members of other religions, a government does. Separation of Church and State would require a major change in the religion of Islam itself.
Sorry that this doesn’t really relate to the topic at hand, but I couldn’t resist the urge to clarify that.
Matthew 5:33-36: 33″Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ 34But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
I’ve read that the above is interpreted by most Christians as “don’t make oaths lightly”, that “Do not swear at all” is better translated as “Do not swear commonly”. And in the context of Matthew that makes certain sense. But James doesn’t have the same context, it just throws it out there in verse 12: Above all, my brothers, do not swearâ€â€not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. Let your “Yes” be yes, and your “No,” no, or you will be condemned. Quakers take it to mean don’t take oaths, and I have to say I find their view on it more convincing. “Don’t swear by God, just be honest”, essentially.
I think you’re presuming a lot when you take it to be symbolic. I would imagine courts don’t think it so—which explains this decision. Per Volokh, the federal rules of evidence don’t treat it as something meaningless:
Rule 603. Oath or Affirmation. Before testifying, every witness shall be required to declare that the witness will testify truthfully, by oath or affirmation administered in a form calculated to awaken the witness’ conscience and impress the witness’ mind with the duty to do so.
Maybe. But the jury won’t like your witness, federal rule or not.
Maybe things would be different if he were to write a letter. From a jail. In Birmingham.
Yeah, I’d demand to be sworn in on a Satanic Bible, just for grins. Claim I was a Muslim, too, and kneel and stick my butt up in the air every so often and go ‘hummana-humman-hummana’. Then show my respect for the ‘legal’ system by hopping up, shooting the Nazi salute, and hollering ‘Hail Satan!’
Teach them to put me on jury duty…
So the point is that the Bible condemns bearing false witness, and that’s why we should swear on it?
I would find out in advance what Bible they were going to use, calculate the page nos. for certain “offensive” passages (pick whichever hysterical cause you want to take up), and slice them out with an xacto knife right in front of the bailiff.
As long as you left in the passages about not bearing false witness, you should be okay, right?
Look, I’m all broken up about Jesus’ doing away with Mosaic law. No shellfish means no shellfish, God didn’t put that in the Hebrew Bible for no reason. I would slice out that page of the Christian Bible, because as a Jew it really offends me that Jesus would be throwing away our laws.
Either that, or I would bring a copy of the Satanic Bible, just to watch everybody’s heads explode.
“Do you, Daryl Herbert, swear to uphold the duties of your office with honor, so help you Satan, Prince of Darkness and Exploiter of Human Weakness?”
Response to Dicentra #29
“I just read those paragraphs in John 7. Like most scripture, the account is pretty sketchy, so there’s no way to know what all the circumstances were, and there’s no way to know what Jesus’ motives were; he never explains himself, AFAIK.”
Many ancient texts include the word “yet”.
It’s not a lie to say I’m not going up there yet.
King James translation
Go ye up unto this feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come.
International Standard Version
Go up to the festival yourselves. I am not yet going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.â€Â
Young’s Literal Translation
Go up to the festival yourselves. I am not yet going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.â€Â
etc…