Democrats omitted “so help me God” from the swearing-in of people testifying before a committee on Feb. 28, sparking criticism from a Republican on the committee.
Video footage from the start of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Rights & Liberties shows Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) starting the hearing by asking three people set to testify to be sworn-in.
“Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony that you’re about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief?”
Cohen asked the trio. They all said yes.
Johnson shared the video clip on Twitter on March 1. “I will not give up on this issue. Stay tuned,” he said.
WATCH: Democrats PURPOSEFULLY omit “so help me God” from the swearing-in oath during yesterday’s House Judiciary subcommittee hearing.
I will not give up on this issue. Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/dwvCbNGAYJ
— Rep. Mike Johnson (@RepMikeJohnson) March 1, 2019
Cohen prepared to move on but Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) interjected, saying, “I think we left out ‘so help me God.'”
“We did,” admitted Cohen.
Johnson, 47, asked the witnesses to reaffirm the oath with the traditional phrase for the record, to which Cohen responded, “No.”
“If they want to do it, but some of them don’t want to do it, and I don’t think it’s necessary, and I don’t like to assert my will over other people,” Cohen said.
Johnson responded: “Well it goes back to our founding history, it’s been part of our tradition for more than two centuries and I don’t know that we should abandon it now.”
“Could I ask the witnesses if they would choose to use the phrase?” he asked.
Before the witnesses could respond, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) asked to speak. He then said: “If any witness objects he should not be asked to identify himself. We do not have religious tests for office or for anything else.”
“And we should let it go with that,” he added.
Cohen then moved the hearing on without any of the witnesses having taken the oath with the phrase “so help me God included.”
Johnson on Feb. 6 shared another clip that showed Nadler asking witnesses to take the oath while leaving out “so help me God” at a House Committee on Natural Resources hearing earlier in the month. Johnson objected and Nadler repeated the oath with the phrase.
After Dems’ failed proposal to strip “So help me God” from the witness oath in the Natural Resources Committee last week, I noticed the clause was being left out at other committees.
It happened today, & I made sure to quickly correct the record. #OneNationUnderGod @JudiciaryGOP pic.twitter.com/j2QWeKW5hz
— Rep. Mike Johnson (@RepMikeJohnson) February 6, 2019
The instances came after a draft of committee rules showed that Democrats on the Committee on Natural Resources were planning to remove the reference to God in the oath.
The draft (pdf) showed the words “so help you God” in red brackets, indicating that the words will be removed if the draft rules are approved. Instead, the Democrats plan to add the words “under penalty of law” to the oath.
A top Republican congresswoman characterized the edits to the oath as indicative of a hard left shift in the Democratic Party.
“It is incredible, but not surprising, that the Democrats would try to remove God from committee proceedings in one of their first acts in the majority,” House Republican Conference Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told Fox News.
“They really have become the party of Karl Marx,” she said.
A number of Democrats openly ran as socialists during the 2018 midterms. While most lost, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a card-carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, won a congressional race in New York.
The drаft of the committee rules features other nods to cultural Marxism. The words “his or her” are replaced throughout the proposed rules with “their” and all of the references to “chairman” are replaced with “chair.”
An offshoot of Marxism, cultural Marxism focuses on culture instead of economics. The ideology is steeped in atheism and purports that there is no such thing as race and gender. Cultural Marxism’s central goal is to destroy traditional culture, with a specific focus on family values, faith, and love for one’s country.
In an exclusive series by The Epoch Times, cultural Marxism is exposed as a form of communism used to infiltrate the West. The reporting specifically shows how the campaign to remove references to God traces back to communist ideology.
Epoch Times reporter Ivan Pentchoukov contributed to this report.