Democrats on the House Committee on Natural Resources voted to retain the phrase “So help you God” in the oath witnesses say prior to their testimony.
According to Jason Calvi, EWTN’s Capitol Hill correspondent, Arizona Democrat Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who chairs the committee, said the draft that would have eliminated the phrase and reference to God was “a mistake”:
The news that the reference to God would be eliminated from the oath created an uproar.
Republican leaders condemned committee Democrats’ plan to remove the phrase referencing God from the oath and replace it with the words “under penalty of law,” says a report at Fox News.
Reacting to the news of the removal of the phrase, House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney of Wyoming said, “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.”
“They really have become the party of Karl Marx,” she added.
The House Natural Resources Committee oversees national parks, wildlife, and energy.
As Fox News reports, in 2012, a controversy exploded at the Democratic National Convention over a move to restore a reference to God and recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Republicans had criticized the omission of the references, but Democrats were at odds over the changes.
According to the report, a senior Obama campaign official said former President Barack Obama intervened himself to change the language back in both cases.
“On the ‘God’ reference, the official said the president’s response was ‘why did it change in the first place?’” Fox News said.