page_title: Quran oath controversy of the 110th United States Congress
section_title: Use of other texts for oath of office
hierarchical_section_title: Quran oath controversy of the 110th United States Congress / Use of other texts for oath of office
caption_attribution_description: English: Lyndon B. Johnson taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One at Love Field Airport two hours and eight minutes after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Dallas, Texas. Jackie Kennedy (right), still in her blood-soaked clothes, looks on. Left to right: Mac Kilduff (holding dictating machine), Judge Sarah T. Hughes, Jack Valenti, Congressman Albert Thomas, Marie Fehmer (behind Thomas), First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Evelyn Lincoln (eyeglasses only visible above LBJ's shoulder), Congressman Homer Thornberry (in shadow, partially obscured by LBJ), Roy Kellerman (partially obscured by Thornberry), Lem Johns (partially obscured by Mrs. Kennedy), former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Pamela Turnure (behind Brooks), Congressman Jack Brooks, Bill Moyers (mostly obscured by Brooks)
context_page_description: In mid-November 2006 it was reported that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever elected to the United States Congress, would take his oath of office with his hand on the Qurʻan. In reaction to the news, right-wing media pundit Dennis Prager criticized the decision in his November 28, 2006, column titled "America, not Keith Ellison, decides what book a Congressman takes his oath on," saying, "What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book."
  The column attracted national attention from supporters of both Ellison and Prager. Presented with the fact that all members of the House swear in en masse without the use of any religious text, and that such works are only used in ceremonial reenactments afterwards, Prager stated "that's the whole point: it's exactly because it's ceremonial that it matters."
  The controversy became more heated when Rep.
context_section_description: Although Prager claimed that swearing in with a Bible is a "tradition that has been unbroken since George Washington", John Quincy Adams took the presidential oath on a law volume containing a copy of the Constitution in 1825, and in 1853 Franklin Pierce affirmed the oath rather than swearing it.  Theodore Roosevelt used no Bible in taking his first oath of office in 1901, but did in 1905. Other sources have noted that after John F. Kennedy was assassinated  a Catholic missal was used as no Bible could be found when Lyndon B. Johnson (who was not Catholic, but a Disciple of Christ) had to assume the Presidency.
  The Library of Congress notes that "As the first Catholic elected president, Kennedy was the first to use a Catholic (Douay-Rheims) version of the Bible for his oath."
caption: Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn in aboard Air Force One with a Catholic missal.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "7750", "Image ImageLength": "6132", "Image BitsPerSample": "8", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "1", "Image XResolution": "4000", "Image YResolution": "4000", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2020:06:28 09:55:03", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "378", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5188", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "7750", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "6132"}