Quran stirs congressional controversy

January 4 should have been a moment of national pride in America, which once earned the U.S. nicknames such as the "melting pot" or the "home of the free." Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat, became the first Muslim member of Congress after being sworn into office by Nancy Pelosi, the first female Speaker of the House.

Unfortunately, instead of serving as a reminder of the different types of people, different political stances and different religions that comprise the American nation, Ellison's oath served more as a platform for extreme right-wing views against immigration.

Ellison announced last month that he planned to place his hand upon the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, in a private ceremony.

Representative Virgil Goode, a Republican from Virginia used the opportunity to send a letter to hundreds of constituents condemning the use of the Muslim book of faith. After the contents of the letter were leaked on the internet, people across the country were able to read Goode's words.

"I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way," Goode wrote in the opening paragraph.

I wonder, would he have preferred Ellison to use the Bible? Would it be better to swear in our congressmen on oaths taken on books that are meaningless to them?

Don't you think by using the book associated with his religion, Ellison makes his oath more meaningful? Some take their oaths and use no book at all; I think using a book of religious significance only serves to strengthen his oath.

Later in his letter Goode wrote, "The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district, and if American citizens 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 Koran."

My questions is this: What the hell does a Detroit-born African-American Congressman who converted to Islam have to do with immigration?

Sadly, since Sept. 11, 2001, the war on terrorism and the United States' fight against Muslim extremists at home and overseas has fuelled widespread discrimination against those who don't fit under the narrow umbrella sheltering American-born, Anglo-Saxon Christians.

Besides the fact that Ellison is not an immigrant, Goode's conviction that Muslim immigration to the United States is a threat to our traditional "values and beliefs" contradicts many of the ideas upon which this country was founded.

Goode chooses to ignore the six to seven and a half million Muslims in the United States who identify themselves as Americans.

To me it seems more "un-American" to discriminate based on religion or to attempt, on a grand scale, to exclude "outsiders" from our country.

Goode seems to promote "freedom" only in the sense that we should be free to exclude those unlike us from our country or force them to adopt similar views.

Not surprisingly, Goode also promotes adopting English as a national language (something this country has made it a point not to do thus far, partially in an effort to reinforce the idea that we are a nation open to all people).

In a wise political move that served as a reminder of America's long history of holding religious tolerance in high esteem, Ellison decided to use not just any Quran in his unofficial ceremony, but one that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson. (Maybe because Jefferson's birthplace of Albemarle County is included in Goode's district, or maybe just because of the reverence for Jefferson and his ideas on religious freedom in this country.)

During a multi-faith prayer service for Congress members earlier in the day, Ellison read a short Quran verse that said, in part: "Oh, humanity, we created you from a single pair... and made you into tribes and nations, so that you would know each other and not despise each other."

Ellison later explained that he chose the verse because "it says that the diversity among us is something God embraces. We as human beings look at the difference among us as a point of division. We should not."

But those who could gain the most from this verse, those like Virgil Goode and other right-wing extremists, were probably not listening.