Bryan Fischer, the “Director of Issues Analysis” for the social conservative group the American Family Association, says that when it comes to Islam, the First Amendment is a privilege, not a right. “Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam,” Fischer wrote today.
“The First Amendment was written by the Founders to protect the free exercise of Christianity. They were making no effort to give special protections to Islam. Quite the contrary,” Fischer wrote on his Renew America blog.
He continued:
Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam. Islam is entitled only to the religious liberty we extend to it out of courtesy. While there certainly ought to be a presumption of religious liberty for non-Christian religious traditions in America, the Founders were not writing a suicide pact when they wrote the First Amendment.
Fischer took it a step further, calling Islam a “treasonous ideology” and adding that “from a constitutional point of view, Muslims have no First Amendment right to build mosques in America. They have that privilege at the moment, but it is a privilege that can be revoked.”
Fischer, also known for his frequent anti-gay, anti-bear rhetoric, has previously called for the U.S. to have “no more mosques, period,” because “every single mosque is a potential terror training center or recruitment center for jihad.” He’s also suggested that we should “handle Muslims just like we handle neo-Nazis.”
And his show is a frequent stomping ground for conservative politicians, including potential 2012 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and actual 2012 candidate Tim Pawlenty.
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