My wife Valerija was sworn in as an American citizenship this summer, after 15 long years of waiting.
Based on that ceremony, here’s my first op-ed ever in the Wall Street Journal. Its kicker is this part:
…last month the Obama administration tweaked, in a way that goes beyond simple partisanship, the rules surrounding the Oath of Allegiance, which immigrants must take during the naturalization ceremony.
…
Exceptions to the pledge to “bear arms on behalf of the United States” aren’t new, but here’s who actually qualifies, as stipulated by the law governing the oath: “a person who shows by clear and convincing evidence to the satisfaction of the Attorney General that he is opposed to the bearing of arms in the Armed Forces of the United States by reason of religious training and belief.”The law continues: “The term ‘religious training and belief’ as used in this section shall mean an individual’s belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code.”
That is precisely the opposite of what’s stated in the administration’s new policy alert—which suggests that modifications to the oath can be granted based on a “deeply held moral or ethical code,” which might be unrelated to religious training, and which applicants cannot even be required to furnish evidence to prove. In other words, the Obama administration is flouting the law again.
The more troubling question is why. After all of the Obama administration’s laxity on immigration—its bypassing Congress to normalize five million illegal immigrants, its toleration of so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to cooperate with federal agents—why this?
The answer, of course, is blowing in the wind.