Necessary Roughness

In a bit of older news, the ACLU has filed suit against the State of North Carolina, demanding that any person taking an oath in court use whatever religious text they wish. The lawsuit started when the Koran was forbidden by state law for use as swearing text.

Why do we take oaths at all? In a court, we take oaths to assure other members of the court that we will fulfill a duty, whether it be to tell the truth or to faithfully consider evidence as a jury.

The oath taken on a religious text is intended to demonstrate a witness’s spiritual accountability to their deity, so that the witness makes the best effort at telling the truth. Both Jews and Christians consider Exodus 20:16 to be a divine, unequivocal, and unabrogated commandment not to bear false witness. The penalty of perjury is miniscule compared to the eternal consequences of disbelief that comes from willful disobedience.

Do Jews swear on a Bible? To my knowledge they simply affirm that they will tell the truth. It seems to be perjurious for a non-Christian to testify that he or she subscribes to the Old and New Testaments. Jews are held to the false witness commandment without swearing to the court. Jehovah’s Witnesses simply affirm as well.

This wasn’t good enough for a Muslim in North Carolina. They wanted to swear on the Koran. I am no scholar on the Koran, but a search on al-taqiyya brings up many opinions that Muslims can lie to non-Muslims. If by swearing on the Koran one affirms their faithfulness to that text, it seems to be an inappropriate test of their conviction to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help them Allah.

If the ACLU gets their wish, then jurists and judges have to make every effort to figure out whether a particular religious text allows for lying. What an encumberance to our judicial system! We just want people to tell the truth in a court of law. Why should we care for what reason they do so? If we get to an age or location where judges and jurists don’t know Exodus 20:16, swearing on the Bible would also fail as an appropriate test of one’s desire to tell the truth.

I would not swear on a Torah, Koran, Bhagvat Gita (Hindu, thanks Arabinda), or other religious text. I would hope that it would be sufficient for my “yes” to be “yes” and my “no”, “no” (Matthew 5:37). Thankfully God’s Law and Gospel apply regardless if I swear on it in a court of civil law. It seems easiest and least likely to violate religious values to leave religious oaths out of court altogether. We still have penalties for perjury.