An issue has been raised in the state of North Carolina about the use of religious texts for swearing in witnesses in courtrooms. It seems that often the only option available is the Bible, which creates a conundrum for those individuals whose faith does not recognize that book, While they could simply make a general affirmation of truthfulness without the book, Muslims are now asking to be permitted to use the Quran for taking the oath.

"There is no (statewide) policy ... and there is no particular plan in place to write a policy," said Dick Ellis, spokesman for the Administrative Office of the Courts. "We haven't gotten to the point yet that something has to be done."

Judges in Guilford County told a Greensboro Islamic center last week that they would not allow people to be sworn in with a Quran rather than a Bible.

In response, the Washington-based Council on Amerian-Islamic Relations asked Tuesday for a statewide policy allowing oaths to be taken on the Quran.

"Eliminating the opportunity to swear an oath on one's own holy text may also have the effect of diminishing the credibility of that person's testimony," CAIR Legal Director Arsalan Iftikhar said in a statement.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said Wednesday that failing to establish a clear policy about the issue will lead to further confusion.

"I think there really does need to be a clear statement one way or the other," Hooper said. "Whether only a single religious text is viewed as holy scripture or whether, in our multi-faith, multi-ethnic society, there are a variety of texts that would be viewed as valid."

Now as much as I hate to agree with Ibrahim Hooper or any other representative of the terrorist-front group that is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), I have to agree with him. The use of a religious text is customary in our society, and the denial of the use of one's text is certainly problematic in a society that has significant grups practicing minority religions. Why shouldn't there be more thna one text used, at the discretion of the witnes? All that is needed is to ascertain in advance the text desired by the witness, and there will be no disruption. Either that, or eliminate the practice of taking an oath on religious texts, something that Most Americans (including me) would oppose.

Now if this happens, there needs to be a clear understanding that no text gets preferential treatment. That means none of the Gitmo-style wrapping the Quran in a towel, handling it with white gloves, or any of the other extreme veneration of the book required of service personnel for fear of offending the terrorists who have made war on the US and who still want to kill us. The Quran would have to be stored, handled and presented in a fashion identical to those other books. And if that means that the bailiff who holds the Quran after lunch is a menstruating woman who still has grease on her fingers from her BLT, no objection can be raised.

After all, treating the Quran differently would be "promoting one faith over another, and that is not what's allowed by the Constitution." And we wouldn't want that, would we Mr. Hooper?

Posted by: Greg at 11:50 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 555 words, total size 3 kb.