Ben Carson is unfit to be president
for his statement Sunday that Islam is inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution, said his fellow GOP candidate Lindsey Graham.
Carson made the statement on NBC's "Meet the Press," and immediately drew outrage from Twitter, where Graham voiced his own opinion.
Other GOP candidates didn't immediately respond, but Democratic candidate Martin O'Malley also mentioned Carson's remarks.
Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations
told the Washington Examiner called on Carson to withdraw from the presidential race.
Several candidates were asked about Islam on the Sunday morning talk shows after a questioner at a New Hampshire town hall on Thursday asked Donald Trump about getting Muslims out of the country. Only Carson expressed oppostion to a Muslim being elected president, though he said he had no problem with Muslims being elected to Congress.
Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, who was one of the questioners at the second GOP debate on Wednesday, said later on "Meet the Press" he is an advocate of Article VI of the Constitution that prohibits a religious test for office seekers.
"I think the answer to all of these questions ought to be, President Obama is a Christian, anyone is eligible for the presidency of the United States," Hewitt said. "Roger Williams, William Penn, Charles Carroll, the first Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, … I think they'd all be taken aback that religion is a hot button issue in America in 2015. It ought not to be."
But Pamela Geller, the activist who has created controversy with anti-Islamic advertising on mass transit and her Draw Mohammad cartoon contest, praised Carson's words, saying on her website, "Ben Carson is right. Electing a Muslim president would be dangerous."
Pointing to President Barack Obama, Geller said, "He claims he is a Christian, but his father and his stepfather were Muslims and he was raised in a Muslim country. He went to an Islamic school and excelled in Qur’an classes while growing up in Jakarta.
"Because of his upbringing he is islamophiliac, and his foreign and domestic policies reflect this," she said.
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