Now that I’m finally catching up with my rebuild of this website and have time to comment again, I couldn’t let the recent swearing in of Congressman Keith Ellison go without note.
I’m steamed. Very steamed. I view the inclusion of a Muslim into the United States Congress bad enough for reasons that would be obvious to most of you, but Ellison has proven me right in what I’ve stated privately for many weeks now: his first allegiance is to Islam and not the United States of America. And how am I sure of that? Well, he demanded to be sworn in on a copy of the Qur’an. But not just any Qur’an mind you — one that belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, garnered international attention Thursday when he used a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson during his ceremonial swearing-in ceremony for the House of Representatives.
The Quran is “definitely an important historical document in our national history and demonstrates that Jefferson was a broad visionary thinker who not only possessed a Quran, but read it,” Ellison said in an interview with the Free Press. “It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking.”
Ellison was criticized by some commentators for using the Quran during his oath off office. Ellison said he decided to use Jefferson’s Quran after receiving a letter from someone who told him about the copy, which is with the Library of Congress. U.S. Rep. Virgil Goode, a Virginia Republican, slammed Ellison for using a Quran.
But Ellison said Friday that Jefferson’s Quran “shows that from the earliest times of this republic, the Koran was in the consciousness of people who brought about democracy.”
So, does inference suddenly equal truth and fact? No, it most certainly does not! But Ellison knows exactly what this kind of propaganda will lead to, especially the lines I’ve highlighted in bold font above: more acceptance of Islam by those that are ignorant to its true history and context and ultimate goals.
But how was Jefferson really influenced by the Qur’an? I’d say that if it was any influence at all, it was to make damn sure that Church and State are separate! But, I digress. I’ll get back to Jefferson in a moment.
Let me put it to you this way — I own a Qur’an. I own a copy of Mein Kampf, too. Does this suddenly make me accepting and sympathetic to the causes of Muhammad and Hitler? Of course not. But only a true fool does not study his enemy.
And that is my point about these absurd and intentionally misleading statements by Keith Ellison. Just as he does not use his Islamic name, Keith Ellison-Muhammad, so as to put the American people more at ease while he’s in the current political climate and spotlight, so is he using inference to replace truth, and this is not going to cut it — not here at the Anvil.
But the damage is done. I’ve already seen the online threads of discussion on this topic and here are some typical responses:
“Gotta love the headline: But It’s Thomas Jefferson’s Koran!
Can’t argue with that. Unless your a bigoted, conservative, religious zealot. But then, thank God there are none of those types in our Congress.”
“Why does this matter? Representatives don’t HAVE to swear in on a bible anyway.”
“…and this is different from the bible how?
/those who live in glass houses…”
“Real conservatives, which we have not seen to much of in the past decade, are happy to see him use whatever book he chooses.”
“Violence is everywhere in religion and their holy texts. Muslims who get their weird/slanted/violent view on what the idea of Jihad means are just confused and angry….if they were reading the bible they would just be extreme right wingers…it’s all about how one interprets their holy book, not about differences in the books themselves.”
Bingo. Directly into the minds of so many people that otherwise undoubtedly deem themselves intelligent individuals, we now have more seeds of chaos sewn. The Bible and the Qur’an are no different from one another? Laughable. For one thing, the Qur’an is a heretical writing influenced by the Bible which drew directly upon what Muhammad himself decided would best serve his purposes when he first formed Islam. Abraham was the perfect link to suddenly condone a figment of one madman’s imagination and look where it has gotten the world. The dictates in the Qur’an are stone-cold and direct. The chapter on Women, for instance, leaves no illusions as to what Islam professes for the treatment of the female in society, but this little fact seems to just slip right by people that make statements like the ones above, because I’ll wager they’ve never even picked up a Qur’an, let alone even read that chapter!
Just as Muhammad succeeded wildly in spreading the ultimate lie, men like Keith Ellison once again use half-truths to push Islam forward. But now, these professors of the faith are doing so right here on U.S. soil! Usurping the integrity of our freedoms, one step and one sentence at a time.
Steamed! You should all be! But, it slips right through our press like so many words about a Sunday picnic in the local paper, doesn’t it? This is how little attention is paid to big and dangerous ideas that are cloaked in milk and honey.
Now, let’s get back to Thomas Jefferson. Here are some quotes from a recent Washington Post article:
Yet the holy book at tomorrow’s ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We’ve learned that the new congressman — in a savvy bit of political symbolism — will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson’s copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson’s collection and has his customary initialing on the pages. This isn’t the first historic book used for swearing-in ceremonies — the Library has allowed VIPs to use rare Bibles for inaugurations and other special occasions.
“…in a savvy bit of political symbolism…”
So, is that what people in Washington call misleading the American people: political symbolism?
One blogger I ran across coyly pointed out the following excerpt from Jefferson’s 1777 Draft of a Bill for Religious Freedom, once more, a further attempt to infer justification for Keith Ellison’s actions:
�that our civil rights have no dependance on our religious opinions, any more than our opinions in physics or geometry; that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right.
Not really much ammo for the usage of the Qur’an for a swearing in when you read it carefully though, is it? This quote is actually just one more long-winded statement in support of separation of church and state, and yet too many folks try to infer (there’s that dirty word again) that there is some hidden meaning there in the words of Thomas Jefferson that somehow support Islam in America.
So, let me play the game a moment and post a quote from the very same draft, and you can then draw your own conclusions:
that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as
ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men,
have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own
opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as
such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and
maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and
through all time:
Now, what historical personality does that first bring to your mind? I know who that paragraph describes for me: Muhammad.
Where, I now ask you, did Jefferson come up with such a toothy paragraph such as that if he was reading not only the Bible, but also copies of the Qur’an? Was he speaking of Jesus Christ? Was he speaking of the Pope? I somehow doubt that, because of the term “false religion”.
False religion.
What false religion was Jefferson referring to? Now that’s the the part of Jefferson that deserves great investigation. A shame most of his library was destroyed in a fire, or I’m sure I’d have more answers to that question readily available. Maybe some of you have sources that can shed light upon this question. But for now, I will leave you with that paragraph. Read the entire draft for yourselves to start.
The Quran is “definitely an important historical document in our national history and demonstrates that Jefferson was a broad visionary thinker who not only possessed a Quran, but read it,” Ellison said in an interview with the Free Press. “It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking.”
Yes, sir, Congressman, in that statement you are not incorrect, I am sure. But what did the Qur’an contribute to Jefferson’s train of thought? That is the real question for the American people.
Related Links: A typical source of the comments, Detroit Free Press, Washington Post, Jefferson’s 1777 Draft of a
Bill for Religious Freedom
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