History was made Tuesday, January 4 when Democrat Keith Ellison got elected to Congress, representing the great state of Minnesota. There is nothing unusual about Minnesota electing a Democrat, but what is a little out of the ordinary is that Ellison is the first Muslim to ever serve in the House of Representatives.

Instead of being sworn into this position on the Bible, he decided to use his religion’s holy book, the Qu’ran (pronounced Koran, but no, it is not mispelled. Check it out!) For some odd reason, there seems to be a lot of uproar about this whole situation. Some people seem to think that Ellison swearing in on the Qu’ran and being in office all together is “un-American.”

Keith Ellison was born in Detroit, Michigan, and eventually moved to Minnesota. He is now 42 years old, and a father, husband, lawyer, state legislator, and community advocate. He and his spouse, Kim, have four children ages 17, 15, 10, and 9.

Other than the fact that they are devout Muslims, they would be considered an all American family. I see no reason why they should not be considered true Americans just because they follow Islam instead of Christianity. Apparently people have forgotten about the first amendment. I seem to remember something in there about freedom of religion.

The U.S Muslim population has grown past 5,000,000 and it is still getting higher. The United States is full of people who follow different religions. There will always be people who have different beliefs and opinions than you, so we are all going to have to be more open minded and accepting.