I am beginning to despair for our national sanity. Somewhere along the line, the bar for presidential candidates got substantially lowered. You were allowed to be dumber than before, and less informed than before, but I think the topper is that you are now allowed—no, strike that, encouraged—to believe
batshit crazy conspiracy theories:
On Fox News Sunday today, host Chris Wallace pursued Cain’s reasoning behind his rabid opposition to the Tennessee center. Cain explained that while the Constitution guarantees a separation of church and state, the Islamic faith “combines church and state. They’re using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community.” [...]
WALLACE: But couldn’t any community then say they don’t want a mosque in our community?
CAIN: They could say that. Chris, lets go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying they’re objecting to. They’re objecting to the fact Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, Sharia law. That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes. The people in the community know best, and I happen to side with the people in Murfreesboro.
WALLACE: You’re saying any community, if they want to ban a mosque?
CAIN: Yes. They have a right to do that. That’s not discriminating based upon religion.
Yes. Imagine the national outcry if some religion used the "church part of the First Amendment" to "infuse their morals" into the rest of us. That would be truly horrible and insidious and stuff.
I'll go out on a limb here and bet that Herman Cain can't name one element of "Sharia law," though he's convinced that whatever it is, it's about to doom us all. But I think it's the inclusion of the word "law" that's the heart of this interesting conspiracy theory. His premise is that while Christianity or Judaism has "commandments," Islam has "laws," and that makes it an entirely different thing, because hey, check out that crazy different word we're using!
This conspiracy theory is widely held, by the way:
Murfreesboro’s state Sen. Bill Ketron (R) sponsored a bill that would make it a felony to practice Sharia law, “which includes lessons found in the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and which can inform how Muslims live their everyday lives, including prayer rituals.”
I'm trying to imagine how this would work if applied to any other religion. Let's suppose we pass a law that makes it a felony to follow the Ten Commandments, because hey, pal, those are both religious and "laws," as anyone who ever demanded we set up a monument to the Ten Commandments in front of some courthouse or other public building could tell you (and probably has, repeatedly).
So how would that be enforced, exactly? If you got caught honoring your mother and your father, would you face prison time? I imagine not committing adultery would land you in the pokey for a good long while; let's not even contemplate what would happen to anyone whose house was suspiciously empty of graven images. You are going down, you religious sicko.
What about the ban of religious clothing? Here I have some sympathy. I for one would pay good money to see Sarah Palin carted off for wearing a gigantic cross around her neck.
What's fascinating is the lengths people will go to rationalize their own ignorance-based bigotries. Cain doesn't know or really care what "Sharia" is, or what it represents. But he knows that it's insidious because it "combines church and state" in a way that other religious (coughfoundamentalistchristianitycough) he says doesn't. It would be wrong to pass religious-based laws, and we don't do such things, except for his entire caucus which makes a point of advocating for exactly that, but that doesn't count because it's, you know, the right religion, not one of those shifty wrong ones.
Cain simply can't see that such a belief could be "discriminating based upon religion," because, in his mind, Islam isn't a true religion, but some sort of world plot masquerading as one. Oh, no, that's not discriminatory at all, right?