Fox News' Eric Bolling is a devout Catholic who is very open about his faith. He has told his pals on The Five and an interviewer from "The Blaze" that his daily routine includes Mass and candle lighting. He burnished his Christian soldier creds and earned at least one get out of Purgatory free card for throwing an atheist off of his Fox Business show because the guy "denigrated" the name of Bolling's BFF. But despite his Catholicism, Bolling has no problem denigrating Rep. Keith Ellison (D), the first Muslim elected to the US Congress. Recently Bolling bore some false witness, on "The Five, by making the defamatory and unsubstantiated claim that Ellison is a "Muslim Apologist" (as opposed to Andrea Tantaros who says that Christians don't blow things up?) and is "very dangerous." Bolling also claimed that Ellison "took his oath of office on the Koran." There was a Koran but it wasn't for the official oath and it wasn't Ellison's. But the question is whether Bolling knows who once owned the Muslim holy book - hint, it wasn't a radical Islamist - or was it!
The American right wing, unable to deal with the reality that the "Judeo-Christian" purity of the US House of Representative was being polluted by a representative of a faith that they feared and loathed, immediately went after Keith Ellison even before he was seated in the House. Hannity pal, Dennis Prager penned an article in which he asserted that Ellison should not take his oath on the Koran and that if he can't take his oath on the Bible, "don't serve in congress. Thing is that members of Congress are not sworn in with religious texts. They all stand, en masse, in front of the Speaker's podium and swear to uphold the Constitution. Many of them carry bibles which are then used for ceremonial swearing in which is often a nice photo-op when it's done with a famous politician.
Ellison's ceremonial swearing in was done by Rep. Nancy Pelosi while Ellison carried a copy of the Koran owned by - wait for it - Thomas Jefferson!!!! The Library of Congress allowed Ellison to use the book which was acquired by Jefferson in 1815. OMG, one of our Founders had a Koran, oh say it isn't so! I know that Bolling and his fellow conservatives revere the Founders but one wonders if they know that Jefferson wanted his (and Madison's) Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom to "comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahomedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination." Pretty radical stuff there and something that Fox News doesn't comprehend. Jefferson also wrote his own version of the Bible in which the Jesus' miracles were excised. No wonder the Texas Board of Education excised Jefferson from their curriculum section on the Enlightenment cuz Jefferson was obviously a jihadist!
Anyway, it's nice to see that Eric Bolling, a true embodiment of Catholicism, can use his position on "The Five" to live his faith!
The key word here is CEREMONIAL.
When new members of Congress take their CEREMONIAL oaths in front of family and friends, they can do so on any book they choose, including a comic book.
When the new Congress takes their OFFICIAL oath, they do so AS A BODY and do not swear on any books.
Funny how Faux sNooze always seems to leave that tidbit of information out . . .
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