Speaking to the editorial board of the Racine Journal Times on Friday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson made it abundantly clear he’s no fan of the First Amendment when it comes to freedom of religion, noting it would be “incredibly unfortunate” if a mosque was built in New York City blocks away from Ground Zero. Not content simply to call the decision “incredibly unfortunate,” Johnson went on to add:
“Those folks are trying to poke a stick in our eye,” Johnson said. “I just hope the zoning officials and the city, the state revisit that, rezone that piece of property.”
Rezoning a piece of land in order to prevent a religious group from being able to utilize the site for the practice of their religion….sounds a lot like Ron Johnson believes that violating the tenets of the First Amendment is A-Okay! While trying to prevent Muslims from building their community center/mosque near Ground Zero may be a politically popular position to hold at the current time, it’s incredibly dangerous when elected officials – or in this case candidates for elected office – start ignoring parts of our Constitution and Bill of Rights in order to suit their political ambitions.
Then again, considering Ron Johnson also supports the violations of the Fourth and Sixth Amendments that have come in the form of the PATRIOT Act, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that he supports violating the First Amendment as well.
Reince is probably writing the press release right now of what rojo really meant…