Blind Hypocrisy

Republican primary presidential candidate Ben Carson recently started a minor firestorm of public opinion when he suggested that he would not “advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.” Naturally, such a biased statement seeming to denigrate a whole religion put some people on edge. Carson, in a later interview, went on to further clarify his views with the following statement: “I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” Carson said, referencing that Islamic law is derived from the Koran and traditions of Islam. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

I happen to agree with most of this statement. The President, and many other elected officials take an oath upon entering office to support and follow the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land. Any religious beliefs that would tend to force someone in such an office to ignore and violate the provisions of the US Constitution must be set aside in favor of following the US Constitution.

Carson later stated, “Anyone who is running for president should embrace the Constitution and should place it above their personal beliefs,” he remarked. “Anyone who can’t do that should not be running for the presidency.” I completely agree with this statement. Hooray for his ability to understand this as a basic qualification for running for the office. Unfortunately, Carson and several other Republican candidates have a form of severe myopia when it comes to understanding the import of this statement.

Just a few short weeks ago we in this country were faced with the spectacle of a county court clerk in Kentucky who refused to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court of the land that said that she must issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. The clerk, Kim Davis, was eventually jailed for a week for contempt of court in refusing to follow this ruling because she felt it went against her personal religious beliefs. In other words, we have experienced a clear cut case where a duly elected official refused to follow a ruling based upon the same US Constitution that Carson insists must be placed above a public servant's personal beliefs.

Instead of a hypothetical case where a Muslim might be tempted to violate the Constitution in favor of their religious belief we have a real life situation where a Christian did violate the Constitution in favor of her religious belief. Carson could not have spelled this out any clearer. It is exactly that situation he described above only it is a Christian refusing to follow the Constitution instead of a Muslim putting their personal belief system above the law of the land.

As it turns out Carson has commented on the case in Kentucky in very concise terms. Unfortunately, his comments directly oppose his statements about Muslims and their belief system. When asked about the Kim Davis case and her right to refuse to follow the Constitution he responded with the following: “But this is a very basic right. This is a Judeo-Christian nation in the sense that a lot of our values and principles are based on our Judeo-Christian faith. There are substantial numbers of people who actually believe in the traditional definition of marriage,” he said. “I’m one of them. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think that other people can do whatever they want to do.”

He continued, “And Congress now has a responsibility to step up to the plate and enact legislation that will protect the First Amendment rights of all Americans. That’s the reason that we have divided government. When one branch does something that tilts the balance, the other branches need to pitch in and correct the situation. This is a serious problem.”

In the first place, no one’s First Amendment rights endow them with the right to deny rights to other people; no matter if they believe their faith demands they do so or not. As Carson rightly stated before, the Constitution of the supreme law of the land and it has to come before someone’s personal beliefs if they are to hold public office in this country. Unfortunately, Carson doesn’t seem to recognize this includes his and Mrs. Davis’ Christian beliefs. Make no mistake about it, the Supreme Court ruling was based directly on the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, the supreme law of the land. Neither Carson, Davis, nor any of the multitude of Republican candidates who have since come out in favor of Mrs. Davis’ decision to flout that Constitution in favor of her own personal belief system seem to understand the hypocrisy inherent in believing Christian beliefs should trump the US Constitution.

In the second place, a basic understanding of 7th grade civics should also be a requirement for someone to run the US government as President and Mr. Carson seems sadly deficient in his understanding of how our government actually functions. Congress does not the authority or responsibility to enact legislation to overrule the Supreme Court’s rulings on the US Constitution. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land and the Supreme Court is the body which rules on interpretations of the US Constitution. While most 7th graders understand this principle and therefore understand that the only way to change the US Constitution is by the amendment rules within the Constitution, Carson thinks Congress should “pitch in to correct the situation.”

Of course none of this should come as too much of a surprise when it comes to Ben Carson. Carson severely castigated Planned Parenthood for selling fetal tissue when that particular scandal was in vogue amongst Conservatives. He didn’t seem to understand that hypocrisy of such a statement coming from someone who had personally used such fetal tissue in his own research projects earlier in his career. Carson seems to commonly be unable to see where his stated positions contradict his personal activities or where his high flying rhetoric about Muslims contradicts his own statements about Judeo-Christian values.

If one is to believe Carson is right that people who cannot place the US Constitution above their own personal belief system should not be running for the presidency we seem to have several other Republican candidates who have recently failed this test as well. When the events surrounding Kim Davis’ incarceration for refusing to follow the Constitution in carrying out her duties came to light there was no shortage of indignant Republican Candidates supporting her right to put her religious beliefs above the Constitution.

Rick Santorum postulated the following: “Martin Luther King wrote a letter from Birmingham jail and said in that letter that there are just laws and unjust laws and we have no obligation to condone and accept unjust laws. And then he followed that up and said what is an unjust law. An unjust law is a law that goes against the moral code or God’s law or the natural law. I would argue that what the Supreme Court did is against natural law, God’s law and we have ever obligation to stand in opposition to it.”

It would be hard to find someone more clearly expressing their belief that their religious beliefs should supersede the US Constitution than this but other Republicans seem to be trying to do so.

Mike Huckabee, another Republican candidate, went even further: “If someone needs to go to jail, I am willing to go in her place, and I mean that.” Imagine the spectacle of a US president refusing to follow a ruling of the US Supreme court and instead demanding to go to jail because their religious beliefs so far outweigh their conviction that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land.

Ted Cruz had the following to say on the subject: “I stand with Kim Davis. Unequivocally. I stand with every American that the Obama Administration is trying to force to choose between honoring his or her faith or complying with a lawless court opinion.” Senator Cruz, a highly educated lawyer, is surely spouting rhetoric. Again, 7th graders understand the difference between “a lawless court opinion” on the US Constitution and a duly considered opinion rendered by the final arbiter of Constitutional law in our system of governance. Cruz surely knows the difference in what “the Obama administration” wants and what the US Supreme court has duly decided. Never one to let the truth interfere with what he wants to project to voters, Cruz has once again proved himself to be wholly devoid of integrity with this statement.

Marco Rubio also weighed in on Mrs. Davis’ right to somehow refuse to do her sworn duty and uphold the Constitution. “We should seek a balance between government’s responsibility to abide by the laws of our republic and allowing people to stand by their religious convictions,” Mr. Rubio said. “While the clerk’s office has a governmental duty to carry out the law,” he added, “there should be a way to protect the religious freedom and conscience rights of individuals working in the office.”

It is unusual to find someone so easily fluid in speaking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time as Mr. Rubio. His ability to support both sides while ignoring the reality that Mrs. Davis is required to follow the law as the arm of the government charged with issuing these licenses. Either she issues the licenses or the law is ignored in favor of her own personal religious beliefs. There is no other solution no matter how skillfully Mr. Rubio avoids the question.

All US Presidents are required by the US Constitution to take the following oath before taking office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Carson is right about one thing. There is no exception to this oath such as “unless my religious convictions conflict with the Constitution.” Unfortunately, neither he nor any of the Republican candidates seem to understand the import of this oath. I would suggest that the statements above concerning Kim Davis effectively disqualifies all of them from eligibility for the office according to Carson’s own logic.