Carson, Islam, & the Constitution

Ben CarsonBen Carson says he wouldn’t support having a Muslim for president and the politically correct world explodes in outrage. He says Islam and the American Constitution are at odds and he’s decried as some kind of constitutional ignoramus.

Time to step back and breathe. As many have noted, he made the quite valid point that anyone who is devoted to Sharia law as the basis for one’s personal life and for how a society should operate is not in sync with the government established under our Constitution.

A truly devout Muslim does follow Sharia law, and anyone who believes that law should have priority over the laws of this nation under the Constitution clearly should not be in high office, president or otherwise.

ConstitutionYes, the Constitution does not place a religious test on officeholding. Yes, anyone, Muslim or whatever, is free to run for president or Congress. We have at least one Muslim congressman right now. But anyone who tries to change our constitutional republic via Islamic law is sabotaging the very nature of the republic.

Under Islamic law, you can forget about religious liberty. You can forget about quite a few of our liberties. They would no longer exist. Therefore, I know that I would oppose any individual running for office who would want to move the country in that direction.

All of this, though, was more of a “gotcha” question than anything. How many Muslims are currently running for president? Right. The question was designed simply to trip up Carson and try to make him into a bigot.

Carson should have been more clear what he meant in his original statement, but since then he has come out and clarified, saying essentially what I have just written. I commend him for not bowing to the hollow cries of outrage and for sticking to the truth about the nature of Islam and the nature of our constitutional republic.

Now, let’s get on to the real issues.