Muslim for President? by Matthew Homsher 9th

Summary: Dr. Ben Carson recently made a comment about how a Muslim can’t be President of the United States. He later clarified this statement, saying that he was talking about radical Muslims, but continued that a Muslim President could exist if he or she rejected the tenets of Islam. Harris Zaffar, an adjunct professor of Islamic studies, says that Ben Carson is not qualified to lead this great nation if he could so easily forget Section Six, Paragraph Three of the constitution, which states, “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”  Zaffar talks about how most political leaders have a history of judging Muslims. He continues that he would like to have a dialogue with Dr. Carson and tell him about the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, an Islamic community that has a 95-year track record of being loyal, civil minded and active law-abiding citizens.

Synopsis: The Islamic faith in and of itself is not the terrorist faith. Any faith can become a terrorist faith, and we should not judge the whole of the Islamic faith by the part that consists of radicals. Each candidate in the presidential race needs to understand that they stand for all the people of this nation, Muslims included. What Dr. Carson said was unconstitutional and offensive to almost 3 million United States citizens. Islam has many similarities to the other monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Christianity, both of which largely impacted the creation of the constitution. What leads to concern are several lines in the Quran which call Muslims to forcibly convert or kill infidels. The bible, however, contains some violent verses of its own, like in Deuteronomy 17:5, which encourages believers to kill the wicked and to salt them with stones, until they die. Similar quotes can be found throughout the Bible and the Torah. Like most people of the major monotheistic religions, the Muslims living in our country promote a peaceful interpretation of the Quran. We also know it is possible to have Muslims living in a country without violence, because Turkey has managed it in the Middle East of all places. We need to toss off this depiction of terrorist Muslims because America represents equality and Muslims deserve fair treatment in America.

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/22/opinions/zafar-carson-muslims/index.html