It was an odd footnote to the Alabama Senate race Tuesday night.
In an interview on CNN, hours before the Republican candidate Roy S. Moore would go on to lose the election, his spokesman asserted that elected officials in the United States were required to take the oath of office on a Christian Bible.
Roy Moore campaign spokesman responds with silence when asked if he knew people can be sworn in with a text other than the Christian bible pic.twitter.com/B65qIKBjlI
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) Dec. 12, 2017
The spokesman, Ted Crockett, used the argument to justify Mr. Moore's position that Muslim politicians should not be allowed in Congress.
The comments capped off a 10-minute interview in which Mr. Crockett discussed the allegations of sexual abuse against Mr. Moore and reiterated the candidate's contention that homosexual acts should "probably" be illegal.
"You have to swear on a Bible to be an elected official in the United States of America," Mr. Crockett said.
The CNN anchor Jake Tapper responded: "You don't actually have to swear on a Christian Bible. You can swear on anything, really. I don't know if you knew that."
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After some back and forth, Mr. Tapper reiterated: "The law is not that you have to swear on a Christian Bible. That is not the law. You didn't know that?"
Mr. Crockett remained silent, his mouth gaping, for several seconds.
Oaths of office can be taken on a Hebrew Bible, or on a Quran, as Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota demonstrated in 2007 when he used one once owned by Thomas Jefferson to be sworn in as the first Muslim member of Congress.
Mr. Ellison, or anyone else, could have also used a comic book, a lesser Shakespeare play or nothing at all.
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt had to take the oath in a hurry after receiving word that President William McKinley had been assassinated in Buffalo. During the ceremony, at Roosevelt's friend's house, no Bible could be found and Roosevelt was sworn in as president without one.
I should run for public office just so I can be sworn in on a copy of the Banjo-Kazooie instruction booklet.
— Luke (@cyberlink420) Dec. 13, 2017
when i'm elected president i'm going to swear in on a copy of the shooting script from JERRY MAGUIRE.
— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) Dec. 12, 2017
The reason is one of the more intelligible parts of the Constitution: Article VI, Clause 3, which covers oaths of office.
It says that members of Congress, members of state legislatures, and executive and judicial officers throughout the country are bound "by oath or affirmation" to support the Constitution.
"But," it continues, "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." (Which, of course, means that as long as you affirm the Constitution, you can leave God out of the matter entirely.)
Mr. Moore, of course, lost the election on Tuesday to his Democratic rival, Doug Jones. A spokesman for Mr. Jones said he had not discussed the oath with the senator-elect. But Mr. Jones, who has belonged to Canterbury United Methodist Church for more than three decades and has taught Sunday school, is likely to be sworn in on a Bible.
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