Ben Carson: “Muslim shouldn’t be elected president”

Last updated on: September 20, 2015 at 11:34 pm by Dan Peterson

Ben Carson: “Muslim shouldn’t be elected president” 2015-09-20T23:34:48-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Ben Carson is a very good man, by all accounts. This, however, was not his finest hour:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/muslim-shouldnt-elected-president-says-gop-candidate-carson/

I understand his concerns. But I absolutely don’t believe that there should be a religious litmus test for the American presidency.

(It would be rather difficult for me to do that, given that, very recently, some were insisting that people of my faith deserve second-class status in American public life. And, until very recently, I’ve always voted for people who disagreed with my religious beliefs.)

I would and will vote for the candidate who best expresses, and who seems most competent and qualified to advance, my political, economic, and social values and preferences — regardless of his or her specific theology.

Ah, someone might ask, But would you vote for an atheist?

Yes, conceivably. Though I confess that it would require holding my nose, for at least two reasons:

(1) Presidents, in their capacity as heads of our state, are required (as I recently noted in a different context) to give expression to our national civil religion, which is sub-Christian but not atheistic. They lead national mourning and Thanksgiving, and so forth. Protestants and Catholics and Mormons and Jews have been or would be able to do that. I think a Muslim could, too. But an atheist? That would be weird.

(2) There is something, to my sensibility, a bit non-human about atheism. Unnatural. Something missing. A troubling colorblindness or tone deafness. I don’t say that about a serious agnosticism, or even about a flat lack of religiosity. But I do say that about a resolute atheism. There. You wanted my frank opinion, and I gave it to you. Or you didn’t, but you kept reading, anyway. In either case, it’s your fault.

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