In his latest attempt to clarify Islamophobic remarks the GOP presidential candidate made over the weekend, Ben Carson has conceded that he could support a moderate Muslim becoming president, while offering the general caveat that the US couldn’t elect someone “whose faith might interfere with carrying out the duties of the constitution”.

And on that narrow point, Carson’s caution is reasonable and astute. All holy texts make claims about crime, punishment, war, human relationships and a whole host of other facets of social and political life that, if interpreted literally, cannot help but clash with the freedoms and frameworks of governance set out in the US constitution. A literal, fundamentalist reading of Islam – like Christianity, Judaism, or any other revealed faith – is thoroughly incompatible with the founding documents of this country.

But that Carson knows and understands this actually serves to underline the underlying bigotry of his initial response, because Carson, presented on Saturday with the idea of a Muslim president, did not equivocate. There was no thoughtful generalizing, no common sense qualifiers about fundamentalists vs. moderates.

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that”, Carson said.

And in Carson’s slow trot to walk those comments back, he has unwittingly revealed his utterly myopic, flattened understanding of Islam as a monolith whose adherents are necessarily implacable zealots. According to Carson’s first reaction and his ensuing revisions, a Muslim candidate would by definition be a fundamentalist incapable of faithfully serving the constitution.

This mentality was equally clear in Carson campaign manager Barry Bennett’s use of the term “Islam-lite” in response to the controversy. “I know there are a lot of other people who practice, I’ll call it Islam-lite. And that’s fine,” he said.

Seemingly in Bennett and Carson’s world, there are only two Islams: real Islam, which is violent and fundamentalist; and “Islam-lite” which is westernized, pleasant and diluted into inauthenticity.

That is a position Carson actually shares with Isis and Islamic extremists around the globe. But whether voiced by violent extremists or US presidential candidates, that view of Islam is an ahistorical and lazy reading of both faith and history – and one that’s been increasingly, tragically popular in neoconservatives circles since September 11, 2001.

Of course, all this presumes that Carson’s recent clarifications are genuine and not merely a politically expedient course correction for a surging candidate who just profoundly embarrassed himself on national television. Charitable though that might be, taking Carson at his word only serves to better highlight the profound problems in his understanding of Islam.

Pundits won’t be shy about drawing the connection between Carson’s comments and the saga of Kim Davis, whose willful disregard for the constitution on religious grounds and as an elected official been met with fawning adoration by many in the Republican field. To an extent this actually includes Carson, who offered Davis his support – however tepid and dissembling – in an appearance on The Kelly File.

Except there is, of course, no immediate danger of a Muslim fundamentalist becoming president of the US – but the same can’t be said for fundamentalist Christianity, which has deep and enduring roots in Carson’s Republican party.

Indeed Carson’s proposed litmus test of “if they put the constitution above their religious beliefs” is one that several GOP contenders – Mike Huckabee comes first to mind – might be hard-pressed to pass. Perhaps Carson would be better served reminding himself and his fellow Republican candidates of that truth as it pertains to their own chosen religion, rather than hand-wringing at the spectre of future hypothetical fundamentalist Muslim presidents.