I was reading this article, which is basically about Newt Gingrich's response to President Obama no longer defending the Defense Of Marriage Act. For those of you who do not know, the Defense Of Marriage Act is a law enacted during Bush's presidency defining marriage federally as between a man and a woman. This is important for many reasons, which are neither here nor there, but basically it boils down to this. If you live in a state where gay marriage is legal, like Connecticut, you have the same spousal benefits as anyone else. In Connecticut. When it comes to those rights federally, you do not have them. You can't file taxes as a married couple, for instance. There are implications with estate taxes, too. While not what this post is about, it got me thinking.
At the end of the article there is this quote:
He is breaking his word to the American people. He swore an oath on the Bible to become president that he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States. He is not a one-person Supreme Court. The idea that we now have the rule of Obama instead of the rule of law should frighten everybody. The fact that the left likes the policy is allowing them to ignore the fact that this is a very unconstitutional act.
This isn't the obvious, normal argument over swearing on a Bible and separation of church and state. I don't really know how I feel about all that, and I don't think it really matters much in the scheme of things. What got me thinking is, what about atheists?
I know, we are never going to elect an atheist anytime soon here. They poll worse than gays and Muslims for public office. And while I have no problem with either gays or Muslims, a lot of Americans do. This is a very important point to consider. In the entire history of the Congress, only six have been openly gay--one woman, five men. Not one of those six comes courtesy of the Senate.
So while gay rights have come some ways, there's still a way to go in terms of electing them to high, public office, and to elect a gay president is, I think, at least a decade away.
Then there are Muslims. Only two have ever served in Congress, both converts, which is, again, important. When most Americans think of Islam, they think of September 11. They think of terrorists with beards, dark skin, and automatic weapons. They don't think of this:
Then there's atheists. Atheists receive a lot of scorn, which I really don't understand. Religious people seem to get bent out of shape over others' beliefs (in this case, non-beliefs). Maybe it's because I'm not overtly religious, but I think if I was, it wouldn't bother me that someone else did not believe in my God. Being raised a Catholic and going to Catholic schools, I certainly never thought the ancient Egyptians or any other religious group which many deities were somehow heathens. Who was I to question someone else's beliefs? If I were a devout Christian, I wouldn't be so worried about other people's souls, I'd want to make sure mine was in tact first.
For the record, there is one atheist in Congress, which is surprising, until you consider that it's in California, at which point it's no longer that surprising.
So, if we could somehow, as a country, form around an atheist president, what would he or she swear upon? Certainly a Bible makes no sense. Perhaps they would just swear. Perhaps they would just promise, because, for an atheist, being held accountable by a God they believe not to exist is like asking a thirty year old to swear on Santa Clause or the Bogeyman. Where is the harm in breaking that promise?
In a more everyday sense, I wonder what atheists do in courtrooms and the like, where this sort of event occurs more often.
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