Those remarks touched off a media firestorm and the Muslim advocacy group CAIR has called for step down from his presidential run.
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“You know, the Constitution specifies there shall be no religious test for public office and I am a constitutionalist”, the Texas senator said during the taping of Iowa Press at Iowa Public Television.
Saying he thought a president’s faith should be “consistent with the Constitution”, Carson, a Christian, said he did not believe Muslims met that bar.
Carson stated that Islam, as a religion, is incompatible with the Constitution this past weekend on NBC’s “Meet the Press“.
In a related report by the Inquisitr, Bernie Sanders has denounced Ben Carson’s Muslim president comment, claiming that he was “very disappointed” in the GOP candidate. “We’re not going to vote for a Muslim either”, Bennett said.
“This is something that I feel very strongly about and if that meant it would ruin my chances of becoming president, I would take that risk”, says Carson.
Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said he would not support a Muslim as president of the United States.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is expected to demand Carson withdraw from the presidential race at an 11 a.m. Eastern time news conference Monday. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) criticized Carson at length in a subsequent Fox News interview.
For more on Carson’s must-haves for the presidency, anchors Tom Storey and Briana Lane weigh in on today’s episode of The Desk.
“What an individual believes impacts how America is governed and what we become as a nation”, Williams said, adding that Carson is not alone in his view of Islam.
Watch a video of Dr. Carson’s remarks below.
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Awad said he was “shocked” to hear Carson’s comments, which he described as “anti-Muslim”. For that we really urge politicians, the general public, community leaders, presidential candidates to repudiate his views. But it also highlights a sentiment among voters in both parties who agree with Carson’s reluctance to elect a Muslim to the nation’s highest office.
“Then I wouldn’t have any problem”, he said. That includes people of all faith.
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“Of course it’s worrisome if you have a party that’s perceived as anti-Latino, anti-Asian, anti-gay, intolerant of Muslims”, Schmidt said.
