Cain Isn't Able

To be president, anyway. Herman Cain went where no candidate really needs to go when he told Chris Wallace that communities can ban religions they don't like:

Herman Cain says voters across the country should have the right to prevent Muslims from building mosques in their communities.

In an exchange on "Fox News Sunday," the Republican presidential contender said that he sided with some in a town near Nashville who were trying to prevent Muslims from worshiping in their community.

"Our Constitution guarantees the separation of church and state," he said. "Islam combines church and state. They're using the church part of our First Amendment to infuse their morals in that community, and the people of that community do not like it. They disagree with it."

Asked by host Chris Wallace if any community could ban a mosque if it wanted to, Cain said: "They have a right to do that."

Cain, an African-American who grew up during the civil rights era, claimed he was not discriminating against Muslims. He said it was "totally different" than the fight for racial equality because there were laws prohibiting blacks from advancing.

Now, it is true that local communities can decline to allow a mosque to build in an area that's not zoned for that type of use, but to claim a community can simply ban a particular religion because they don't like it seems to fly in the face of the First Amendment. We have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion that makes us uncomfortable.

Cain has fundamentally misread the Constitution and I'd be concerned at how that might manifest itself in his dealings with other things he doesn't like.

And, as Jim Geraghty points out, once you allow one religion to be targeted you open the door to attacks on other religions as well:

Our common definition of religious freedom in this country can let all of those diverse ideas, beliefs, and faiths flourish, but not Islam? And do we really want to make the mood and values of the locals the litmus test as to whether a religion can be practiced there? How would that rule apply to deeply conservative or traditional houses of worship in places such as Manhattan or San Francisco or Cambridge or Berkeley? "I'm sorry, you can't practice that faith here; your prayer for the unborn offends your pro-choice neighbors."