When Dr Ben Carson asserted that no Muslim should be president of the United States, because Islam was not consistent with the Constitution, the reaction of the media and the left was as predictable as it was hysterical.
Yet all studiously failed to address the basic question: was Carson correct? Many quoted the Constitution’s Article VI: “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States” – but that’s a fallacious argument which skillfully avoids what Carson actually said: that the doctrines of Islam are incompatible with the Constitution.
What Carson was arguing was not to establish a religious test for office, but whether certain religious doctrines failed the test of the Constitution. Especially the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
A recent investigation by Jihad Watch suggests that Carson was indeed on to something.
In January 2020, I wrote about the results of a survey I had done in which I presented four questions to eighty Muslim public officials across the United States; each question asked the Muslim public official to choose between following the U.S. Constitution/our man-made laws or Islamic Doctrine. An eye-opening 93% of these Muslim public officials would not express support for the U.S. Constitution or our man-made laws. Of the six who did express this support, only two allowed me to mention their name.
Historian Daniel Pipes has previously recommended subjecting Muslim activists, intellectuals and clerics to specific, closed questions, as a “sniff test” for extremism. The Jihad Watch questions apply Pipes’ methodology.
No. 1: Will you go on record now and state that our 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech gives the right to anyone in the United States to criticize or disagree with your prophet Muhammad, and will you also go on record now and state that you support and defend anyone’s right to criticize or disagree with your prophet Muhammad[…]?
Islamic law forbids apostasy, the rejection in part or whole of the Islamic faith. In fact, most Islamic jurists agree that it is punishable by death.
No. 2: Our 1st Amendment guarantees freedom of religion in the United States. As part of that freedom, anyone in the United States has the right to join or leave any religion, or have no religion at all. Will you go on record now and state that you support and defend the idea that in the United States a Muslim has not only the freedom to leave Islam, but to do so without fear of physical harm[…]?
Question three relates to the corporal punishment mandated by the Koran and other Islamic scriptures, which clearly violates the Constitutional prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment”.
Question four notes that the Koran allows (but does not mandate) polygamy: also a violation of US law. Mormons were, after all, required to abandon polygamy, sometimes by force. LDS manifestos in 1890 and 1904 repudiated polygamy in Mormonism. It should be a no-brainer for Muslims in America to do the same.
These are all pretty basic questions which any candidate or politician seeking office in the US should be able to answer.
Only three Muslim candidates clearly stated that they would support the U.S. Constitution/our man-made laws over Islamic Doctrine.
Only five others replied but avoided answering the questions. The rest ignored the request altogether.
These 36 Muslim Americans seeking public office would have to, if successful, take an oath of office that includes swearing (or affirming) to support the U.S. Constitution[…]The fact that 92% of them would not take this opportunity to express that support is troubling.
Troubling, but not surprising. As we saw earlier, 93% of current Muslim public officials and 77% of aspiring Muslim reformers also declined to make such a choice.
In fact, mainstream Islamic organisations are demanding the opposite.
In its 2020 ‘Muslim Vote Campaign’ the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has included a questionnaire asking non-Muslim candidates and government officials whether or not they support specific “Muslim needs.”
jihadwatch.org/2020/03/92-of-new-muslim-candidates-wont-express-support-for-constitution-one-mn-republican-makes-it-bipartisan
Instead of Muslims supporting America’s fundamental law, the Constitution, CAIR instead demand that non-Muslims accommodate certain Islamic religious teachings.
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