It’s dirty politics to use Muslim as a dirty word

By Clarence Page

Monday, Sept. 28, 2015 | 2 a.m.

After reaching the top tier of Republican presidential candidates in polls, Dr. Ben Carson has given us another historic milestone: He has boldly called for religious discrimination against any Muslims who run for president.

Responding to host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to the question of whether he could support a Muslim candidate for president, the famous brain surgeon said, no, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Why not? Islam, Carson said, is “inconsistent” with the Constitution and “the values and principles of America.”

Well, as a constitutional expert, Dr. Carson makes a good brain surgeon. It says quite clearly in Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution that “... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”

A lot of Americans thought we had said goodbye to the sort of religious bigotry that marked the nation’s past. It erupted ferociously against the presidential run by New York Gov. Al Smith, a Catholic, in 1928. The election in 1960 of another Catholic, John F. Kennedy, in 1960 despite vocal opposition from some throwbacks, seemed to put that religious test question to rest.

Even Carson began to backpedal, as condemnations of his remarks came in from various groups, including some of Carson’s fellow Republican presidential hopefuls.

In an interview later Sunday with The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, Carson said he was caught off guard by Todd’s question. It wasn’t all Islam that he opposed, just Sharia law. If the Muslim running for office “publicly rejected all the tenets of Sharia and lived a life consistent with that,” he said, he “wouldn’t have any problem.”

Carson’s wobbly attempts to clarify his sentiments sound like those of a man who never really had to think about these touchy issues before he decided to run for president. Better late than never.

Rest assured, there is no danger of the Islamic-based legal system of Sharia taking over other American laws. Yet, anti-Muslim jitters are so fierce in some parts of our country that states with very few or no Muslims have tried to pass laws that expressly forbid their courts from even considering Islamic law in judicial decisions.

An Oklahoma federal judge, for example, struck down a state constitutional amendment to stop Sharia from creeping into the state’s courtrooms, even though state attorneys acknowledged there had been no instances of any Oklahoma court trying to apply Sharia or any other legal precepts from other nations.

If the potential invasion of Sharia law is the concern of Carson and others who want to call themselves fair-minded, it should be treated like any other personal belief of a candidate. The candidate should be given an opportunity to explain how his or her beliefs might influence his or her conduct in office. Then the voters can decide. That’s the American way.

Is the Quran un-American? We know Thomas Jefferson, an avid reader, found time to see for himself. He had a two-volume English translation of the holy book that now belongs to the Library of Congress.

In 2007, Rep. Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat and one of two Muslims in Congress, took his symbolic oath of office on Jefferson’s Quran. Religious differences, Ellison said, “are nothing to be afraid of.” No, not unless you think of every Muslim as a potential terrorist.

At least Carson doesn’t appear to be pandering to the angry, fearful and ignorant as vigorously as the Grand Old Party’s current frontrunner, Donald Trump. The billionaire TV star recently alluded to the worst of the anti-Obama conspiracy theories, including the ridiculous notion that he’s a secret Muslim.

Even when he was asked after Carson’s remarks if he thought a Muslim should be elected to the presidency, he sarcastically quipped that “some people” think we already have one. Har, har.

I would add, in the spirit of an old line from TV’s “Seinfeld”: “Not that there’d be anything wrong with that!”

Clarence Page is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune.