In a case that has some relevance to the resoundingly ignorant flap over whether Keith Ellison could swear on a Koran, a North Carolina judge has ruled that nonChristians can use their own holy book when called as witnesses in the courtroom.
The decision represents a victory for the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, which sued the state after two Guilford County judges rejected an offer from an Islamic center to provide county courthouses with free copies.
"The highest aim of every legal contest is the search for truth," Wake Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway wrote in an 18-page opinion. "To require pious and faithful practitioners of religions other than Christianity to swear oaths in a form other than the form most meaningful to them would thwart the search for the truth.
"It would elevate form over substance."
The legality should have been beyond question; the judge's opinion simply notes the futility of swearing on a book you don't believe in.
Maybe now Prager et al will cease their hyperventilating about this and concede their point was flawed. But I'm not holding my breath.
religion, politics, midtopia
2 comments:
And this makes you happy?
JP5
Of course. Any time religious pluralism wins, I'm happy.
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