Trump: If elected, I would shut down certain U.S. mosques

By Robert Spencer 86 Comments

The Hamas-linked terror organization CAIR, which works assiduously to silence and marginalize everyone who speaks out against jihad terror, is now pretending to support the freedom of speech: “Donald Trump’s apparent willingness to close down American mosques that he deems ‘extreme’ is totally incompatible with the Constitution and our nation’s cherished principle of religious freedom,” said CAIR Government Affairs Department Manager Robert McCaw. “The government should not be in the business of deciding what is acceptable free speech or religious belief. Donald Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks are both un-American, and un-presidential.”
The freedom of speech and the freedom of religion do not give anyone a license to plot murder or sedition. It is completely reasonable to shut down mosques in which jihad terror is preached or plotted. Our American Freedom Defense Initiative called for that in 2013. This shouldn’t be controversial at all: churches in which murder is plotted or preached should also be shut down. No institution in which murder and sedition are preached or plotted should remain in operation.
Trump doesn’t understand the war against free speech or the implications of self-censorship in the face of violent intimidation, and that is a very serious flaw; but he is right on this one, and the sinister Islamic supremacists speaking out against him — Hamas-linked CAIR, Linda Sarsour — are testimony to that.

“Donald Trump: I would shut down certain mosques in U.S. if elected,” by Adam Edelman, New York Daily News, October 21, 2015 (thanks to David):

Donald Trump on Wednesday promised to close certain mosques in the U.S. if elected President.
Trump, discussing his strategy to fight ISIS during an interview on Fox Business Network, also said he would revoke the passports of U.S. citizens who have traveled abroad to fight for ISIS.
“I would do that,” Trump said during a telephone interview after FBN host Jim Varney asked him if he would favor revoking passports and closing mosques. “Absolutely. I think it’s great.”
“If you go out, you go fight for ISIS, you can’t come back. Why can’t you do it? You can do it here,” he added.
Varney, however, then pressed the 2016 Republican front-runner, asking again: “Can you close a mosque? I mean, we do have religious freedom.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Trump responded in an apparent backpedal. “It depends on if the mosque is, you know, loaded for bear, I don’t know. You’re going to have to certainly look at it.”
The comments drew immediate rebuke from leaders within the Muslim-American community.
“It is truly outrageous that the leading Republican presidential candidate would announce openly that he would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by closing down religious institutions,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington-based advocacy and rights organization, told The News. “I hope this finally prompts people to speak out against this off-the-rails Islamophobia that we are seeing from the right wing of the American political sector. ”
Linda Sarsour, executive director of the Arab-American Association of New York, called the comments “dangerous” and warned that unless other politicians publicly chastised Trump, his remarks could put people within the community at risk.
“That the Republican front-runner for president is calling for the closing down of religious institutions in the land of religious freedom is outrageous,” Sarsour told The News. “This rhetoric, if it’s allowed to continue, has real consequences for the Muslim community in the U.S.”
“It creates suspicion and stigma against an entire community,” she added. “It’s unfair and unjust.”
Even Trump’s fellow Republicans took issue with the remark, with Rep. Peter King (R-Long Island) — who himself hasn’t exactly been an ally of the U.S. Muslim community — taking the candidate to task.
“Donald Trump is talking before he knows what he’s talking about. I have been critical of people in the Muslim community, but the fact is you can’t be going around shutting down mosques,” King said on Fox
The front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination also said he would revoke the passports of U.S. citizens who have traveled abroad to fight for ISIS.
“I think we should have surveillance of mosques. I think we should be trying to find out what is going on in a mosque, find out if there’s activity in that mosque, where there’s weapons or conspiracy going on,” he added. “Then yes you can take action. But to be casually, the way Donald Trump seems, to be talking about shutting down mosques? No.”…