About oaths...

[William E. Cole]

Reading all the recent posts about SCA oaths (i.e. Oaths of Fealty)
possibly conflicting with mundane-life oaths made me think about
something not yet mentioned, and I was curious what other thought of
this...

I have, as I've mentioned before, very strong beliefs about oaths. One
thing I believe about oaths is that any previously made oath must always
take precedence over an oath sworn afterwards. I think it is immoral to
swear an oath with the INTENTION of claiming precedence to a previously
made oath in order to avoid part of the second oath, but I also believe
that in a an unforeseen situation (for example, the person in the
military who wouldn't swear because he thought there might be a conflict
with military secrets) were there are conflicts, it would be
automatically (and honorably) understood that a previous oath would be
the more binding of the two. For the example, this would negate the
possiblitiy of a conflict, since the military oath was made first. Does
this seem reasonable or unreasonable to everyone else?

William FitzBane