President Barack Obama slammed Newt Gingrich for his call to test American Muslims to find those who follow Islam’s Sharia law and deport them,
The Hill reports.
"The very suggestion is repugnant and an affront to everything we stand for as Americans," Obama said at a White House reception. The president said such a test would undermine the constitutional right to freedom of speech and religion.
"We cannot give in to fear or turn on each other or sacrifice our way of life," Obama said. "We cannot let ourselves be divided by religion, because that is exactly what the terrorists want. We should never do their work for them."
The former speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives from Georgia took to
Fox News, saying the government "should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported. Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization."
Gingrich went on Twitter Friday morning to distance himself from the statements and reports about them.
Sharia law is a complicated and varied belief system, and readings of it ranging from fundamentalist to liberal.
The Atlantic compared Sharia to Jewish law, or "halacha."
In fact Israel, a country long supported by Gingrich, has Sharia courts supervised by the Ministry of Justice, and has since its founding as a country,
reports the Atlantic.
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