Linkmeister

Take that, Virgil Goode

You've heard about this nitwit Congressman from Virginia, Virgil Goode? He's been squalling about the idiot voters in Minnesota who had the gall to elect a Muslim named Keith Ellison to the U.S. House.

The controversy over Ellison's desire to swear his oath on a Koran, which had been stoked by conservative commentators initially, reached something of a fever pitch when Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, an otherwise obscure Republican, declared in a letter to a constituent that "When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Qur'an in any way. 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 Qur'an."

[snip]

What made Goode's ignorance of those founding principles remarkable was the fact that he represents Virginia's Albemarle County, where Thomas Jefferson was born in 1743.

On Thursday, it will not be Virgil Goode who pays tribute to Jefferson.

It will be Keith Ellison.

The new Congressman from Minnesota will declare his loyalty to the Constitution while clutching a copy of the Koran that was once owned by Jefferson. One of many Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist texts that the author of the Declaration of Independence donated to the Library of Congress at its founding, the Jefferson Koran has been loaned to Ellison by the rare book and special collections division of the library.

Way to trump this miserable bigot, Congressman Ellison.