So help me dog (or god, whatever!).

I just wanted to vent my spleen and see if anyone else shares my view and thinks I should take any action. I was just recently honored with the civic responsibility of jury duty. I attended, was selected and even was made the jury foreman (without any lobbying on my part! ). The thing that stuck in my craw is that I had to swear an oath that included the words "so help me god" as did all the witnesses. This was in Orange County, FL for the Ninth Judical Circuit Court of Florida. I felt this was a clear violation of my rights as a citizen of the USA to freedom of religion or in my case, freedom from religion. Coffee house I think.

Well they didn't really give me the chance. When it came time to swear the jury or witnesses in, a clerk would read the oath out, including the "so help me god" and the jury or the witness would have to say "I do". Essentially agreeing with the oath. It just rubbed me the wrong way, as if I wasn't trustworthy unless some bully god was keeping me in line!

Well Phat, it's not that I just am offended by it, I can't actually take or accept the oath as given. If I say "I do", I'm lying. I would have to make a special request, prior to the swearing in to have a different oath read, just to me, so I could accept it. If I were a witness, I'm sure many members would hold it against me that I didn't want to swear to their god, as if doing that would ensure that I tell the truth. In the case of the jury duty I just finished, I was not aware that god was going to show up in the oath and I hesitated but decided not to halt the court preceedings just to get them to change the oath. I shouldn't have to. The government shouldn't automatically foist god on all jurors, witnesses and defendants.

LOL! That would be fun to get them to change the oath so that christians won't break their rules. You could probably get much more sympathy from the general public for that than you could ever get for non-believer.

Well I just received a jury duty notice and so I once again will probably get to be a juror. If selected I am going to try and submit a request to take a secular oath this time. The religious zealots down here started opening Orlando city council meetings and the Juror instruction sessions with the pledge of alleigence with the overly fevrent ones almost shouting "under god" !

Wow! I wonder when that article was enacted. It clearly is unconstitutional but then again there are lots of laws that are on the books that are unconstitutional and are just not enforced. It does seem to be contradicted by the second paragraph, though the wording "Nothing shall prohibit or require ..." makes it seem that this was more to allow the reference to deities and belief.

The article right after it is interesting too! Basically there will be no religious test except for this one!

I've been in Florida for the last 19 years and this is about my sixth or seventh jury duty call up. I was selected 3 times. In the previous ten years that I was eligable to be a juror (living in Michigan and then Chicago) I was only called up once for a Federal case but I wasn't selected. It's kind of interesting to watch the process and the more I see the more I don't ever want to be on trial! The Orange County Courthouse in Orlando,FL is pretty nice though and since it's a highrise the view from the jury room is beautiful.http://www.consultwebs.com/...es/fl/orlando/604/2/occ_73.jpg

Well here it's off the voter registration roles and since they started the motor-voter registration (ie you can register to vote when you renew your drivers license) the supposedly have more people to select from.You can't look out the windows in the courtroom, only in the jury deliberation room and in the hallways and possibly the judges chambers (I've never been in there so I'm not sure) can you see out.

I agree with you but I don't want to invoke the courts wrath or actually delay the court preceedings. All in all the oath thing is mostly an annoyance and it pisses me off because it is clearly an infringement of my rights. Just not a major enough one for me to want to possibly be jailed on contempt of court charges if the judge gets irked at me.

In more enlightened areas of the country they have already removed god from all court and public office oaths, it's just mostly in the less enlightened ares (aka the bible belt) that they keep adding god in everywhere they can. Just this week in Kissimme, FL (just south of Orlando) the city commission introduced a motion to add "In God We Trust" to the city logo. They said they were doing it for "patriotic reasons", as I guess only believers can be patriots.