WASHINGTON, 23 December 2006 — A congressman said Thursday he will not retract a letter warning that unless immigration is tightened, “many more Muslims will be elected” and use the Qur’an to take the oath of office.
Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Virginia, raised controversy with a letter this month to constituents who were concerned that Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat who is the first Muslim elected to Congress.
A criminal defense lawyer, Ellison was elected to the House in November, and said he will use a Qur’an in an unofficial ceremony.
“I will not be putting my hand on the Qur’an,” Goode said at a news conference Thursday afternoon.
Goode told Fox News he wants to limit legal immigration and end “diversity visas,” which he said let in people “not from European countries” and from “some terrorist states.”
In his letter, Goode warned that if Americans “don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Qur’an.”
Ellison, forced to defend himself, told CNN Thursday night that he could trace his ancestors to Louisiana as far back as 1742. “I’m about as American as they come,” said Ellison, an African-American who converted to Islam in college. Ellison said Goode should learn more about Islam.
Ellison said he plans to use the Qur’an only as part of an unofficial individual swearing-in before friends and supporters. That will follow the official ceremony in which all House members raise their right hand and pledge their allegiance without resting their left hand on anything.
The controversy has caused quite a flap in the US. Radio host Dennis Prager, who said Ellison should quit if he can’t be sworn in with a Bible, was criticized Thursday by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Prager, a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, said that swearing an oath on the Quran “undermines American civilization.”
The board executive committee of the Holocaust Memorial called Prager’s view “antithetical to the mission of the museum as an institution promoting tolerance and respect for all peoples regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity,” but did not call for his resignation.
Critics of Goode and Prager noted that the US Constitution specifically bars any religious screening of members of Congress and that the actual swearing in of those lawmakers occurs without any religious texts. The use of such texts occurs only in private ceremonies that take place after lawmakers have officially sworn to uphold the Constitution.
While Democrats in Congress have criticized both Goode and Prager’s remarks, Republicans have remained noticeably silent.
“We are deeply troubled by the failure of state and national GOP leaders to clearly distance themselves from Representative Goode’s intolerant remarks,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, National Legislative Director Corey Saylor. He said Republican leaders in Virginia should have learned a lesson in tolerance from the controversy over Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” episode.
Saylor said incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Goode’s remarks “offensive.”
In a statement issued yesterday, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said: “The seven million Muslim-Americans living in the US are an integral part of American society. Our country is a melting pot of different cultures and beliefs. This diversity is a strength, not a weakness. Bringing more Muslim-Americans into the political process is a goal, not something to be avoided.”
CAIR has called on state and national GOP leaders to repudiate anti-Muslim remarks made by a Republican congressman in Virginia, and has asked that Prager be removed from the taxpayer-supported council.
