Obama has asked to say 'so help me God' at swearing-in Posted: 04:15 PM ET
From CNN Supreme Court Producer Bill Mears (CNN) — President-elect Barack Obama has requested that the words “so help me God” be added to the end of the oath of office to be administered by Chief Justice John Roberts on Inauguration Day.
That confirmation came in an affidavit filed today by Roberts' court counselor in a pending lawsuit by an atheist opposed to any mention of God in the inaugural ceremonies. Roberts said he would abide by Obama’s wishes.
The Constitution has specific language on what has to be said when swearing in the president, but the “so help me God” phrase has traditionally been added at the end of the required oath, starting with George Washington in 1789.
Buzz up! For two centuries, it was common knowledge that George Washington added, "So help me God" to the end of his constitutionally prescribed oath of office. But the fact is there is no eyewitness documentation that America's first president said those words.
The oath is in the news now that California atheist activist Michael Newdow - last seen in the headlines trying to knock "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance - is suing to drive all mention of God out of Barack Obama's inauguration Jan. 20. A U.S. District Court judge will hear the case next week.
Although the Web site and video produced by the official committee in charge of the inauguration say Washington set this precedent, experts at the Library of Congress and the first president's home, Mount Vernon, cast doubt on that assertion.
Beth Hahn, historical editor for the U.S. Senate Historical Office, said this week that "the first eyewitness documentation of a president saying, 'So help me God' is an account of Chester Arthur's Sept. 22, 1881, inauguration in The New York Times."
Unfortunately for Hahn, she put the phrase in Washington's mouth in a video titled So Help Me God, posted on the Web site of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
"When I made the video, it was common wisdom that he said it, and I did not check it," Hahn said. "After investigating this, I would say there is no eyewitness documentation that he did - or did not - say this."
At Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, Alexandria, Va., the oath is displayed with the phrase "So help me God" set off with an esllipsis and marked with an asterisk to a footnote explaining there is debate over whether Washington added the words.
In a Library of Congress video on inaugural history, now-retired historical manuscript specialist Marvin Kranz makes no mention of the phrase in Washington's oath but stresses that his inaugural speech did make significant mention of God. Washington began with "fervent supplications to that almighty being who rules over the universe" and concluded by turning to "the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication" and asking for God's "divine blessing" for the nation.
Blessings by clergy at the inauguration - initially by the Senate chaplain and since 1933, by clergy invited by the president-elect - have been part of inaugurations for more than two centuries without much attention.
Newdow wants it all halted.
His suit, which includes 39 other individuals and groups, demands that God be removed from the oath and that the invocation and benediction be eliminated.
Defendants include Chief Justice John Roberts; Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and the two pastors invited by Obama to bless the event, Saddleback Church mega-pastor Rick Warren and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, a civil rights icon from Atlanta.
U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton will hear the case Thursday in Washington.
Logged
