WASHINGTON (ABP) – An interfaith leader criticized presidential candidate Herman Cain for “at best” misunderstanding the First Amendment and at worst “a blatant attempt to spread Islamophobia for political gain.”
Cain, a businessman and political commentator running as a Republican, said on Fox News Sunday that he believes communities have a right to ban Islamic mosques and that isn’t religious discrimination because Muslims are trying to inject Sharia law into the United States.
Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, wrote Cain July 20 saying the statements “alarmed me, confused me and frightened me.”
“I cannot imagine how you square your comments with any part of the United States Constitution and the religious land act that is now a law,” said Gaddy, an ordained Baptist minister who serves as minister for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La.
Gaddy accused Cain of spreading “irrational fear” that Sharia law is somehow taking over America’s courts. “Are you deliberately choosing to ignore the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which most legal experts consider more than sufficient to keep Sharia law or any other religious law from influencing our courts inappropriately?” he asked.
Gaddy said Cain’s assertion that Islam is different from other religions because it is both “a religion and a set of laws” is “just plain wrong.”
“Yes, it is true that Islam is a religion with a set of laws called Sharia, but Judaism has a legal code called Halacha, and Christianity reverences both the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount as principles greater than any law,” Gaddy said. “Your comments suggest a serious lack of understanding not only of Islam but of religion writ large and of the meaning of our First Amendment.”
Gaddy called on Cain to “temper your rhetoric” and “to cease your attacks on Islam.”
“I wholeheartedly agree that we must be concerned about terrorism,” Gaddy said. “But you and I both know that we will not make ourselves any safer by demonizing innocent Americans and by giving neighbors reasons to fear each other because of their differing religions. Winning an election is not worth compromising our nation’s historic commitment to religious freedom.”
The letter is the second in recent days from Gaddy criticizing television broadcasts carrying comments demeaning the faith of others. On July 12 Gaddy wrote a Fox television affiliate in Memphis expressing “great concern” about a segment that ridiculed Mormonism while noting that two current presidential candidates are Mormons.
And Gaddy isn’t the first religious leader to publicly disagree with Cain’s views on Islam. Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said July 18 on C-SPAN that Muslims have the same rights to build houses of worship as everyone else.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.