Mark Trapp at Southern Appeal asks if this oath for federal judges is unconstitutional because it mentions God. Well, the answer is certainly yes: “judicial officers...shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” (U.S. Const. Art. IV § 3, emphasis added).
Update: Slithery D says that the test oath clause was
intended only to forbid tests between religions, but [the framers] didn’t particularly mind a requirement that you be of some religion, or at the very least be willing to mouth a meaningless platitude to say that you do for public consumption. It wouldn’t even be an absurd reading to restrict the impact of the clause to protect only Christians, although that would obviously still cause problems on the margins, i.e., Mormons.
Okay, two problems with this. First, D is wrong—the debates at the time reveal that there were many who complained that the no-test-oath clause permitted atheists, Jews, and others to hold public office. I’ve discussed this in my article “Article VI And The Paradox of Toleration.” It is true that the framers’ generation had state constitutions which had such oaths, but I am aware of nothing to suggest that the framers of this clause intended it only to forbid tests between religions or sects. Surely, had the framers intended that, they could have said it.
Second, as D’s “problems on the margins” comment suggests, even if we take the view that the religious freedom clauses of the Constitution only meant to apply within Christianity, that just begs the question. What is a Christian? That itself is a matter of dispute within Christianity, and to say that religious freedom only applies to Christians solves no problems since the group which asserts dominance will just as readily declare that its enemies aren’t “real” Christians.
Update 2: D replies to my second point above by saying that using a Christian oath requirement to exclude “pure athiests, Hindus, and Buddhists, at the very least, aren’t going to be hard line drawing exercises.” Well, not to be obstinate, but again, I disagree. Was Thomas Jefferson a Christian? He considered himself one because he believed in the moral teachings of Jesus, but he did not believe Jesus was the son of God. The most Liberal Quaker groups even “include members who are active homosexuals, or who also identify themselves as atheists, Zen practitioners, or modern witches. All such persons can (not must, but can) be good, authentic Quakers; and many are.” And I have met people who identify themselves both as Buddhists and as Christians. True, a “pure” atheist like myself would be obviously excluded by any religious oath that requires affirmation of a belief in any supernatural Personality. But lines between denominations are in a great many cases question-begging as I’ve said—just like in evolutionary biology, where the differences between a species and a mutant is just the difference between a twig and a trunk.
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