Pip: Welcome to The Babblings of JT — where the founding document is apparently a surprise to the people most loudly defending it.
Mara: JT Santana takes on the constitutional reality behind oath ceremonies, the rights of elected officials to choose their own books, and what the history of American swearing-in practices actually shows.
Pip: Let's start with the Constitution itself, and why a Senate election triggered a panic about a book.
The Oath Is to the Constitution. The Book Is Your Business.
Mara: The setup is Abdul El-Sayed's election to the U.S. Senate in Michigan — Reuters reported on November 4, 2026, that he had won the seat, becoming the first Muslim elected to that chamber. The question the post drives at is whether his right to choose a Qur'an for a ceremonial oath is constitutionally secure.
Pip: The post answers that before the first paragraph is done, quoting Article VI directly: "It does not prescribe a Bible, identify an approved denomination, or require an incoming official to adopt Christianity. These are features of the constitutional text, not concessions recently negotiated for a particular candidate."
Mara: That's the load-bearing point. Article VI prohibits a religious test for federal office. The Senate oath commits a member to constitutional allegiance and faithful performance of duties — not adherence to any scripture. The ceremonial book doesn't change the public object of the promise.
Pip: And the post is careful to separate what's confirmed from what isn't — as of the article's preparation date, El-Sayed's actual ceremony hadn't occurred yet, so claims that he had already become the first senator sworn in on a Qur'an ran ahead of the verified record.
Mara: That precision matters throughout. On the documented hostility, Associated Press reporting confirmed Trump called El-Sayed a "jihadist" during the campaign. The post treats that as worth criticizing on its own terms, while also cautioning against attributing the same reaction to every Republican without evidence.
Pip: The historical record does a lot of work here. John Quincy Adams used a volume of laws in 1825. Theodore Roosevelt used no book at all in 1901. Keith Ellison used Thomas Jefferson's own copy of a Qur'an in 2007. Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Tulsi Gabbard with the Bhagavad Gita, Jon Ossoff with Hebrew scripture once owned by Rabbi Jacob Rothschild — the post works through each case with sourced precision.
Mara: And then there's Kyrsten Sinema, who used a Library of Congress volume containing the U.S. and Arizona constitutions, and Robert Garcia, who arranged a Superman comic alongside his citizenship certificate and a copy of the Constitution. The post is careful to note that Garcia's arrangement included the Constitution — "He used a Superman comic" is memorable shorthand, but it omits the deliberate relationship between the objects.
Pip: The post's conclusion is direct: "A Bible does not certify honesty. A Qur'an does not establish disloyalty." The ceremony's book is not a character test, and treating it as one makes accountability easier to stage and harder to practice.
Mara: The practical standard the post offers is straightforward — confirm the actual ceremony when it occurs, identify the chosen book from reliable reporting, explain the institutional procedure, and evaluate the official on votes and decisions, not on what was in the photograph.
Pip: Rights that only apply when the holder is politically convenient aren't rights — they're favors.
Mara: That's the thread running through all of it. The protection that reaches a Muslim senator today is the same one that reaches anyone else tomorrow.
