It turns out that Dr. Ben Carson doesn’t really and truly think no Muslim could serve as president of the United States.
The good doctor is right to change his mind … more or less.
Carson — one of 15 candidates seeking the Republican presidential nomination — said on “Meet the Press” that Islam is incompatible with the U.S. Constitution. Thus, he said, he couldn’t ever condone the idea of a Muslim running for president.
Now he says something different — and much more reasonable.
He believes now that if a Muslim were to disavow Sharia law then, by golly, he’d be all right with a Muslim running for — and possibly becoming — president of the United States.
You see — and I am sure Dr. Carson knows this — the Constitution is a secular document to which all presidents swear to defend and protect.
His purported fear of Sharia law was nonsense on its face when he said it over the weekend.
Anyone who takes the oath swears to set his or her religious faith aside when performing the duties of the public office. Sen. John F. Kennedy faced accusations during the 1960 presidential campaign that he would take orders — as a Roman Catholic — from the Vatican. He torched that concern with one speech in September 1960 in which he would promise fealty only to the Constitution were he to win the election.
According to The Hill newspaper: “If someone has a Muslim background, and they’re willing to reject those tenets [of Sharia law] and to accept the way of life we have, and clearly will swear to place our Constitution above their religion,” the 2016 hopeful said in a Monday night interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel, “then I would then be quite willing to support them.”
There you have it. Reason and sanity have taken their rightful place in this discussion.