Democrats Have Removed ‘So Help Me God’ From House Committee Oaths

Yes, Democrats Have Removed ‘So Help Me God’ From House Committee Oaths

“I think God belongs in religious institutions”

The Democrats have continued their mission to root God out of the public square in the name of secularism by removing “so help me God” from the U.S. House of Representatives oath witnesses must take when testifying before several of the congressional committees, all of which are currently under Democratic control.

According to LifeSiteNews, the changes to the oaths have been slowly implemented ever since House Democrats announced the new policy in January, which immediately faced backlash.

“In January, a draft of a rules package from the Natural Resource Committee was leaked to the public showing ‘so help me God’ marked for deletion, replaced with the phrase ‘under penalty of law,’” reports the outlet.

Even Snopes admitted at the time that Democrats indeed had tried to take God out of the oaths. Here’s what the original document stated before Democrats retracted it:

(e) Oaths. — The Chairman of the Committee, the Chairmen of the Subcommittees or any Member designated by the Chairman may administer oaths to any witness before the Committee. All witnesses appearing in hearings may be administered the following oath by the Chairman or his designee prior to receiving the testimony: ‘Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?’

Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) claimed the removal of God from the oaths was a simple “mistake.” Despite that, the Democrats eventually went on to push God out of the oaths, which One America News pointed out in March when Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TX), chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, specifically omitted “so help me God” when swearing witnesses in at a hearing. When Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) tried to correct the oath, Cohen publicly rebuked him. Take a look:

Last month, The New York Times reported that Democrats have made “so help me God” a forgotten and buried tradition in the U.S. House, with Rep. Steve Cohen telling the outlet he finds the phrase inappropriate for Congress.

“I think God belongs in religious institutions: in temple, in church, in cathedral, in mosque — but not in Congress,” said Cohen. “And God doesn’t want to be used.”