The R Rated Blogger

Keith Ellison is the first Muslim elected to the United States Congress. Recently he has been under attack from the far right because Ellison announced that he will use the Koran when he takes the oath of office. The man leading the charge against Ellison using the Koran is Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode. In a letter written to his constituents, Goode called it a threat to American values.

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 Koran 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 Koran.

Ellison isn't backing down. In a one-up-manship, the Koran Ellison will be using for his swearing in ceremony will be a Koran that once belonged to America's third president Thomas Jefferson.

"He wanted to use a Koran that was special," said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who was contacted by the Minnesota Dem early in December. Dimunation, who grew up in Ellison's 5th District, was happy to help.

Jefferson's copy is an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s; it survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages.