Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) on Thursday morning said that while he does not think it is American to condemn specific religions, he said that it’s “appropriate” for lawmakers to discuss Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims visiting the United States.
“He’s treading on dangerous ground because Americans are so deeply committed to freedom of religion. That is a major part of who we are,” Sessions told host Steve Bannon on Breitbart News’ SiriusXM radio show, referring to Trump’s plan. “But at the same time, we’re in an age that’s very dangerous and we’re seeing more and more persons enter and lots of them have done terrorist acts and a lot of them believe it’s commanded by their religion.”
“So I think it’s appropriate to begin to discuss this, and he has forced that discussion. We may even have a discussion about it in Judiciary Committee today,” Sessions continued.
The senator said that he doesn’t believe it’s unconstitutional to ban Muslims from immigrating to the U.S.
“The classical, internal American religious principles, I don’t think, apply providing constitutional protections to persons — not citizens — who want to come here,” he said. “They’re not in the United States and they’re not entitled to the constitutional protections of the United States.”
“But as a principle, we want to be not condemnatory of other people’s religion,” Sessions added. “And there are millions of wonderful, decent, good Muslims, hundreds of millions worldwide, and so we’ve got to be really careful that we don’t cross that line and I guess Mr. Trump has caused us all to think about it more concretely.”
H/t Right Wing Watch
