Political Cortex: Urban Legend -- or Hero of Constitutional Democracy?

Urban Legend -- or Hero of Constitutional Democracy?

By Frederick Clarkson
08/29/2006 02:33:35 AM EST

A lot of stuff goes around out here in cyberspace. Some of it is true, some of it is not. There have been a lot of hoaxes. And of course, the things that seem too good to be true -- often are. Fortunately there is an excellent web site called Snopes, that checks the veracity of such things. One of the things they checked up on was this:

On Wednesday, March 1, 2006, at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, [American University] was requested to testify.
At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?"
Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."
The room erupted into applause.

That folks, is a true story.

I wrote about it at the time. And Jamie Raskin -- a hero of constitutional democracy for having the knowledge, the principles and the courage to speak up the way he did-- is running in the Democratic primary for state senate in Maryland representing Silver Spring and Takoma Park. How lucky can the people of Maryland get?

If the struggle for religious equality and separation of church and state is to be won in our time -- we need elected officials like Jamie Raskin. The primary will be held on Tuesday, September 12th.

Contributions to his campaign may be made here.

: Jamie Raskin

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