It’s true that our Constitution says that there shall be no religious test to hold political office in the United States. You can find this in Article VI:
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
I mean, that’s not even in the newfangled Bill of Rights. It’s right there in the original Constitution, and so it ought to be as uncontroversial as any part of the Constitution can be. It’s nice of Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham to remind Ben Carson of this because I get worried when stuff that shouldn’t be political suddenly becomes contentious. That leads to state-sanctioned torture, for example, and climate science denialism.
But I don’t think it’s crazy for people to feel uncomfortable about people of other religions becoming president of the United States. First, being uncomfortable is not the same thing as saying that a person is barred from even running for the office. Second, the same clause that gives people the right to run for any office regardless of their beliefs is a recognition that we don’t want our officeholders imposing their beliefs on us.
Some people questioned whether John F. Kennedy would be independent of the Vatican, and even I wondered exactly how the leadership of the Mormon church might influence Mitt Romney if he were to become our president. Islam doesn’t have the same kind of hierarchical and centralized political structure, but practitioners of the religion do typically follow one school of thought or another and there are leaders within each school or each community who can exert a lot of influence. At the extremes, you can find the situation that Ben Carson is concerned about where an individual Muslim will follow religious instruction that is inconsistent with the values in our Constitution. For example, if they are committed to following a higher law when their Islamic teaching comes into conflict with our secular laws.
Under the circumstances, it is not unreasonable to ask John Kennedy or Mitt Romney or some hypothetical Muslim candidate for the presidency how they personally understand these boundaries and to seek assurances that when they take their oath to support the Constitution that they will mean it in a sense that we can trust.
This isn’t bigotry, at least not by itself. It’s actually the opposite, in a sense, because what it seeks is assurances that one religious viewpoint will not take precedence over another.
This can seem kind of strained since we’ve lived for over 225 years with nothing but deists and agnostics and Protestants (and one Catholic) as our president and so it’s pretty clear that that faith tradition has had de facto precedence even if it hasn’t been articulated into formal law. You can always find a double standard without too much difficulty here because we didn’t ask Sarah Palin and we don’t ask Hillary Clinton about their ability to uphold our laws without undue influence from their religious instructors.
In principle, though, there isn’t a problem with asking that kind of question. After watching Joe Lieberman’s behavior (as a private citizen) over the Iran Nuclear Deal, I think it’s entirely reasonable to question whether he had the independence of mind to serve our country as vice-president or president, or if he was so wedded to his perception of Israel’s security interests that he couldn’t be trusted with our own. This isn’t in any way anti-Jewish, nor does it mean that all Jewish office seekers should be regarded with high suspicion. It just means that the electorate has the right to be concerned about such things and to seek answers about them.
In this limited sense, I understand why Ben Carson doesn’t feel comfortable with the idea of a Muslim president, just as I understood it when some people didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of Romney as president. Where the bigotry starts, however, is when you don’t want to do the hard work of assessing an individual and instead want to go the easy route of just barring some religious minority from holding office at all.
This is the kind of laziness that led to the Japanese internment camps and that led to random acts of violence against Muslim-looking people in the aftermath of 9/11. Religious bigotry feeds off of precisely this kind of laziness and fear.
Political leadership of the positive sort is dedicated to helping people get beyond fear so that they can be decent individuals. Political demagoguery consists of fanning and exploiting fear so that distinctions disappear and fear can be redirected as hatred towards some largely defenseless group.
We know which camp Ben Carson is in. Unfortunately, he has a lot of company in the Republican Party right now.
I donated money to Keith Ellison’s first campaign because he had priorities I wanted my congressional delegation to push not because or in spite of his religion.
I like Ellison. I worked with his office a little bit while I was consulting for DFA. Good people.
Under the circumstances, it is not unreasonable to ask John Kennedy or Mitt Romney or some hypothetical Muslim candidate for the presidency how they personally understand these boundaries and to seek assurances that when they take their oath to support the Constitution that they will mean it in a sense that we can trust.
Only not unreasonable to ask as long as it applies to all religious persuasions of all candidates. The current crop of Christianist politicians very much want to impose their religion on all of us and have no boundaries between their faith and what is appropriate for our government to do. To many of us, they are a real and present danger to our civil liberties.
Yup.
> seek assurances that when they take their oath to support the Constitution that they will mean it in a sense that we can trust.
Trust whom … politicians?
It should be made explicit, and they should swear to it, on the religious totem of their choice (bible, koran, whatever).
Then make them sign a copy.
For what it’s worth, I’m a Muslim convert and I agree completely. There are those who call themselves Muslim who I wouldn’t want anywhere near the big red button. I don’t consider those people Muslim at all, but they call themselves Muslim and so the questions you pose are reasonable. Same for those of any other religion such as Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, etc. I’d be equally concerned about Protestant candidates who follow fundamentalist or evangelical sects.
But Carson is saying that all Muslim office seekers should be regarded with high suspicion. That’s precisely his point. Carson seems to think that all Muslims are interchangeable, and that they would necessarily try to impose Sharia if they were elected president:
That is definitely bigotry.
Yes, and I said as much.
This is a reminder that there is actually still a possibility for Jeb! to be the nominee.
Just as it was for Romney, there is a chance that Jeb! could just stand there and wait for all of the other candidates to simply light themselves on fire and shoot themselves in the leg.
Preto, he is the winner.
It started with Martin van Buren really. Can you really trust someone not raised within British culture (War of 1812 notwithstanding)?
Well they had dealt with the Scotch-Irish without qualms, so….
Then there was Kennedy, who had to swear not to be ruled by the Papist Empire.
Nixon the hereditary Quaker got a pass because his Quakerism was not that kind apparently.
Then Jimmy Carter, the born-again Southern Baptist who confessed (in Playboy of all places to having experienced “lust in my heart”).
And then the ethnic-religio-ideological fantasay spun to delegitimize Obama’s election. (“Mama, they really didn’t elect a black man President, did they? Mama? Mama?”)
And then there was Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, mostly offered as “balance” for the Obama fantasy.
And now James Hagee has his Christian Zionists frothing, all of the Islamophobe communication entrepreneurs are sending out their solicitation for funds because “Be afraid. The apocalypse is coming. The Lord will judge you in glory.” Or “Be afraid. We’re all gonna die.”
And the GOP is so desperate not to talk about issues at all that they glom on to this madness. And because it is madness, the media loves its quirkiness and strange characters and pushing the emotional buttons so you will keep watching.
Meanwhile Netanyahu is beginning to talk with King Salman of Saudi Arabia and Putin of Russia about oil and weapons. And the news stories are reporting that he is doing this without consultations with the US.
All very sensible, but the rule appears to be that no questions about the Repub candidate’s religious extremism is permitted, but the Dem is always fair game. I think we’ll be waiting some time for the first Muslim prez candidate, so Carson’s precise iteration of bigotry is a bit of a moot point.
Except for the fact that he is using the opportunity to get to the right of Trump on a hot button issue so loved of the haterbase, so Trump better watch himself or soon he’ll be seen as the squish, haha. There’s no wiggle room in the politics of demagoguery, Mr. T…
But it appears all the utterly unqualified Repub candidates (Trump, Carson and Fiorina) plan on using the tactics of demagoguery to climb the greasy pole, and the GOoPer base will love, love, love it. Of course, I assume the Rightwing Noise Machine has already denounced Sanders as the REAL demagogue in the race, hatin’ on the innocent class of defenseless billionaire job creators! The hideous discrimination of higher taxes! Obviously Hitlerian!!
Here’s another example of laziness and fear taking precedence over leadership.
The same sort of question can be asked of Carson.
Why should we trust someone with the office of the presidency who comes from a religion that believes a person who sustained a brain injury from a rock to the head is some sort of prophet?