November 12, 2012, here on slacktivist: Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and let your ‘no’ be ‘no’
If Obama voluntarily chooses to add the phrase “So help me God” then Obama is the one making the affirmation. It doesn’t matter whether anyone else believes in God, and it doesn’t matter whether or not that belief is correct for whatever value of “correct” Seidel or Franklin Graham or anyone else cares to argue. If uttering the phrase “So help me God.” emphasizes the gravity and seriousness of Obama’s oath — for him, personally, and thus for all witnessing him — then it’s just kind of weird to take offense at that.
Seidel’s objection that Obama’s use of this phrase would be “exclusionary and distasteful” parallels the protests from Christianists after Rep. Keith Ellison reaffirmed his oath of office with his hand on a copy of the Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson. I expect to hear the same whining in January when Tulsi Gabbard is sworn in as a member of the U.S. House from Hawaii. Gabbard is Hindu and has said she plans to take her oath on the Bhagavad Gita.
I’ve never understood the objection to that. I want Ellison and Gabbard to take their duty as public servants seriously, so I want them to take their oath of office as seriously as possible. The Koran is sacred to Ellison, so it is, for him, an appropriate expression of that seriousness. One does not have to share Ellison’s Muslim faith to appreciate that. The Gita, likewise, is sacred to Gabbard and is thus an appropriate expression of her seriousness. One does not have to share Gabbard’s Hindu faith to appreciate that.
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