A Muslim President?
By Hal Lindsey
On Sunday’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd asked Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, “Do you believe that Islam is consistent with the constitution?”
Dr. Carson answered, “No, I don’t, I do not.”
Todd: “So you.…”
Carson: “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.”
Here’s how quickly the media twists words to suit their own political predilections. CNN anchor Kate Bolduan characterized Dr. Carson’s statement like this. “There is an entire religion that he does not think should have equal rights in the United States.”
How did, “would not advocate” become “should not have equal rights”? Carson, a Republican, would probably not “advocate” that a Democrat be president either. What a person would refuse to “advocate for,” and what he would prohibit by law, are two different things.
Monday morning, CNN ran a live press conference held by Nihad Awad, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CNN usually only runs live press conferences when they relate to big, breaking news stories.
At his press conference Awad lectured Dr. Carson on the United States Constitution. Awad held up a placard with the constitutional prohibition against using religious tests as a prerequisite for office. “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
Perhaps someone should lecture Mr. Awad. Either he misunderstands the constitution or he wasn’t listening. Dr. Carson did not call for a legal prohibition against a Muslim holding the office of President. He said, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” and that’s totally different.
The real question goes to the voting process. In this new, politically correct ecosystem, are voters allowed to consider the ramifications of a candidate’s religious beliefs? Such beliefs often represent a person’s core values. Of course, they should be considered! Under the U.S. Constitution, religious beliefs cannot be used by the government to keep someone from holding a public office. But that does not limit a voter’s right to use whatever data he or she deems applicable.
So let’s look at Islam, and ask if that religion espouses the kind of values we want in a president. In books and on television, I have spent a great deal of time documenting the violent and tyrannical nature of Islam. I don’t have space to go into all of that here, so let’s just look briefly at one area of Muslim practice — the treatment of women in Muslim societies.
Robert Spencer and Phyllis Chesler wrote an extensive article for the David Horowitz Freedom Center called, The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam. Here are some quotes:
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“Women who are raped in Muslim countries often end up being punished while the rapist gets off free.”
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“A Muslim man in Iran cut off his 7-year-old daughter’s head because he suspected she had been raped by her uncle.”
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“Many little Muslim girls have their genitals cut out — without anesthesia — in order to destroy their sexuality and make them ‘pure.’”
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“Daughter and wife beating are routine in the Muslim world. Over 90 percent of Pakistani wives, for instance, have been struck, beaten, or abused sexually — for offenses like cooking an unsatisfactory meal, or for failing to give birth to a male child.”
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“In Iran the legal age for marriage is nine years old, and in an Afghan refugee camp virtually all the girls over second grade were married.”