On Muslim Presidents

Anyone who believes their religious faith beliefs should be part of their governmental professional agenda should be summarily removed from office.  Christian, Muslim, Jew -- as an elected official at any level of US government, your job is to advance a Constitionally sound platform that serves every person of every religion or no religion.  So if we allow Christians to hold office presuming they can separate their religious faith from their official responsibility (which we do), we necessarily will allow people of any other religion to hold office.

If you believe your religion in such a way as to promote an exclusionary agenda against non-believers, then no.  Get your ass out of the public policy game.

Most religions, the big 3 for sure, have somewhere in their orthodoxy, a strong anti-out-group bias.  They've all persecuted and been persecuted.  But if you hold to that dogma tucked away in your creed which actually contradict the real center of your religion (love your neighbor), then you should seek other employment than public service. If your interpretation of your religion does not consider all people equal in dignity and respect under the law, you need another profession.  How many ways can I say it.

If adhering to a religious principal that demands you in any way to diminish others because of their religious beliefs (or lack thereof) is important to you, stay away from government!

Kennedy went so far as to make a public statement that he, as President, would be beholden only to the nation as his guiding star:

     "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.     I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all."

The case for Muslims: Because there is a significant number of Muslims around the world who cling to violent and exclusionary principals, and including in our own country, people naturally, if unfairly, associate all Muslims with this practice and belief system.  The gut reaction is to fear (and hence, discriminate, denigrate, hate, fear, mock, or otherwise react against) all of them.  It's an embarrassing and unAmerican stance.  Those of higher character will not succumb to that intellectually and morally weak reaction, but maintain that it is not Islam or its practitioners per se that need to be feared, but those who choose to (or just do) interpret their religion in such a way that promotes violence against those who believe different.

Stay strong, people.  Stay smart.  When you start making decisions and policy based on fear, you tread dangerously close to being that which you hate.