What About the No Test Oath Clause

[Sean Wilson]

Mark:
 
I don't understand the point. Perhaps I missed something. If a person believed that God required him to vote for or against gay marriage, and if the power structure of the district elected this person, what on earth would be the objection to pursuing these passions in Congress? (Did I misunderstand the point?) Why would fixation to rule others be disfavored only because the metaphysical rationale elects to personify the higher power? Would it also be wrong for a harmony theorist who believed in kindness to others to be disqualified, because the ground of the belief is metaphysics also? Is it a no metaphysics rule or a no God rule? Also, how do you discriminate between political passion that takes a metaphysical form versus those that take the more ordinary form (selfishness)? Madison says that the root of all politics lies in two basic passions: selfishness and world view. The former gets you ordinary desires like tax cuts and no tort reform (if you are a lawyer), while the
 latter gets you opinions about gay marriage and abortion.
 
... I don't see how you could say that passion in the form of "world view" is disqualified merely because it relies upon personified metaphysics -- especially so in the branch of government purportedly configured to capture and harness these urges intelligently. 
 
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq. 
Penn State University
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----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Graber <mgraber at gvpt.umd.edu>
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2006 4:24:31 PM
Subject: RE: What About the No Test Oath Clause


 So if someone writes a letter to the editor of the New York
Times declaring that Congress ought to ban (or allow) gay marriage
because that is God's will, that strikes me as a reason for not allowing
that person to be in the Congress.

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