Through the Looking Glass: No Bible, no xenophobia, no service
Rep. Goode’s Islam problem, on display for all to see
By Sarah Delia, staff writer
Posted on January 18, 2007

In the eyes of Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode, swearing into congressional office using a Quran instead of a Bible is the same as walking into a respectable restaurant with no shoes or shirt and demanding service — it’s simply not done. Goode, who is the congressman for the 5th District of Virginia, represents Harrisonburg’s neighboring counties of Danville, Martinsville, Charlottesville and 19 others, though he luckily skips our own Harrisonburg/Rockingham County. With the advent of Keith Ellison, the first Islamic senator ever to be sworn into office on Jan. 4, Goode has taken it upon himself to spread not so welcoming wishes to his fellow congressman by launching a verbal assault, merely using Ellison as a springboard to attack the Islamic faith.

A former Catholic turned devout Muslim, Ellison insisted that on the day of his ceremony he be sworn in using his religion’s most sacred piece of literature, the Quran. Goode responded by letting his districts rest at ease by stating “When I raise my and to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand.” Most likely, he will also be holding some good old firearms, carrying Bill O’Reilly’s latest book on high terror alerts in his free hand and have a Confederate flag tied around his chest. Goode goes on to say that he does not “subscribe to using the Quran in any way,” this however, was a subscription Thomas Jefferson chose to buy into, as the particular Quran Ellison swore upon was once owned by the third president of the United States, making that Quran quite patriotic.

Unbeknownst to the American citizens who elected Ellison as their representative for Minnesota, Goode insinuates that everyone must have been asleep at the polls, as he warns if they “don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position … there will likely be many more Muslims elected into office.”

That is from a man who proudly has a copy of the Ten Commandments along with the statement “In God We Trust” hanging on his office walls. 

A Muslim student came to visit Goode’s office and inquired as to why there was nothing about the Quran displayed on any part of his office, to which Goode responded, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, the Quran is not going to be on the wall of my office.” He also commands a call to action to end the diversity awareness and policies President Clinton promotes, saying it would allow “many persons from the Middle East to come to this country,” as if people from the Middle East are the only people or immigrants that would harm Americans. I guess Goode was asleep when President Kennedy was shot by American Lee Harvey Oswald, or when John Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman, also born and raised in America, or more recently when two American high school students massacred students and faculty at Columbine High School.

As Virgil Goode seems to have become the poster child of anti-Islamic sentiment and attempts to hinder the push forward for diversity, the fear that he says he feels toward different cultures and people is the same fear that is rising toward Goode himself as people begin to question his political position. If Goode is so afraid of the melting pot of different ethnicities that our country was founded on, he should flip his remote and turn off the “White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant” society of “Desperate Housewives” he seems to have caught himself tangled in.

Sarah Delia is an English and art history major.