Waltham Councillor Takes Path Less Traveled On Inauguration Day

WALTHAM, MA — For the first time in recent memory a newly elected city councillor chose to make a secular affirmation during the inauguration rather than swear the traditional oath of office, which invokes God.

"People have always had the option to affirm rather than swear, this is just the first time someone's make the request," Assistant City Clerk Joe Vizzard told Patch.

At the inauguration Sunday, January 7 at Kennedy Middle School those elected to office raised their right hand and had the option of swearing an oath to God or a higher power or taking the more secular approach pledging on their own honor.

Instead of saying “I do solemnly swear,” New Ward 7 Councillor Kristine Mackin chose to say “I do solemnly affirm” instead. In place of “So help me God,” she said “I do so under the pains and penalties of perjury.”

Just as newly elected presidents can chose not to swear when they take the Presidential Oath of Office laid out in the US Constitution, which reads "I do solemnly swear or affirm." All newly elected officials in Waltham have a similar choice not to swear. NPR looked at how this choice came to be, and it turned out to be a Quaker legacy.

"The Quakers were among some of those groups that took very literally the injunction in Scripture in the Sermon on the Mount that you should swear not, just period. You swear not," Paul Lacey of the American Friends Service Committee told NPR in 2009.

Still, it's rare for a president to chose to affirm, in 1853 President Franklin Pierce affirmed his oath.

It's less rare for public officials to affirm an oath today. Across the country those for whom swearing by God is actually against their consciences such as some secular humanists, atheists, and agnostics as well as many religious conservatives and Quakers, choose to affirm rather than swear an oath.

New Ward 7 councillor Mackin was the only councillor to do so Sunday, but she declined to comment on the inauguration itself or her choice.

"I look forward to working with my fellow councillors over the next two years to accomplish our shared priorities for our community," she said in an emailed statement when Patch inquired.

After Sunday's inauguration, the council elected a Diane LeBlanc to continue as council president. Councilor George Darcy nominated himself and Councilor Robert Waddick nominated Diane LeBlanc.

Only four people voted for Darcy. Ten councillors voted for LeBlanc and one councillor was absent.

Previously on Patch

Waltham Elections 2017 Results

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