Prager Under Fire

Radio talk show host Dennis Prager riled up the Islamic activists last week with his complaints about new Muslim congressman Keith Ellison's plan to be sworn in using a Koran instead of a Bible:

WASHINGTON — A Muslim-American advocacy group has called on radio talk show host Dennis Prager to be removed from the governing board of the federally funded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum after Prager last week blasted a representative-elect for planning to use the Koran at his swearing-in next month.

Prager, who is Jewish, slammed Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to the U.S. Congress, after Ellison announced he plans to have his oath of office photo taken with the Koran instead of the Christian Bible, which is traditional.

"Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible," he wrote in a column titled, "America, Not Keith Ellison, Decides What Book a Congressman Takes His Oath On."

"If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress," Prager wrote, adding that using the Koran "undermines American civilization."

The Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) issued a statement Monday calling for Prager's ouster from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, the museum's advisory council.

"No one who holds such bigoted, intolerant and divisive views should be in a policy-making position at a taxpayer-funded institution that seeks to educate Americans about the destructive impact hatred has had, and continues to have, on every society," CAIR wrote in its letter to the museum council's president, Fred Zeidman.

This is like a perfect storm for CAIR. It's enough for them to have somebody criticize a Muslim, but to have a Jew do it must make them feel like an ACLU lawyer tearing down a nativity display.

I heard some of Prager's on-air comments about the issue and frankly thought them a little silly. I don't think it really matters what people swear on - they're capable of lying after swearing on a Bible, Koran, or the latest Far Side Calendar. It really doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

For a much more scholarly look at this issue, check out Mark Daniels' post on the subject.