The candidate said American citizens who belong to a certain religious minority group can be denied the right to build places of worship





In June, when Herman Cain said that Muslims seeking to serve in his administration would be subject to a special loyalty test, a lot of people accused him of bigotry. I was among them. In subsequent interviews, Cain scoffed at his critics, but he also quietly changed his position: there wouldn't be any special test for Muslim Americans, he said, he'd just vet everyone very carefully.

As it turns out, those of us who suspected that he isn't to be trusted with the liberty of religious minorities were right. In the clip above, he asserts that every community in the United States should have the right to ban mosque construction. "They're objecting to the fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws: sharia law," Cain said. "That's the difference between any one of our other traditional religions... The people in the community know best, and I happen to side with the people in the community."

Said host Chris Wallace: "So you're saying any community if they want to ban a mosque?"

Cain: "Yes. They have the right to do that..." It's sharia law that they're really objecting to, he said.