Uphold This!

This is running around the 'net so fast that Snopes has a fact-check on it. This is from a Maryland State legislature hearing in respose to a judge (activist, of course) who ruled an gay-marriage-ban bill unconstitional

"As I read Biblical principles, marriage was intended, ordained and started by God — that is my belief," [Jacobs] said. "For me, this is an issue solely based on religious principals."

Raskin shot back that the Bible was also used to uphold now-outlawed statutes banning interracial marriage, and that the constitution should instead be lawmakers' guiding principle.

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," he said.

Some in the room applauded, which led committee chairman Sen. Brian E. Frosh, a Democrat from Montgomery County, to call for order. "This isn't a football game," he said.

Emphasis added, of course. You have to wonder (OK, I have to wonder): is this a line he'd been waiting to use? Something he's been saying for years now, but never got noticed before?

It's a great shorthand, but the true secularists among us will note that the "hand on Bible" thing is still kind of iffy....