The free exercise of religion is too vital to allow communities to restrict it, Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land said July 18 in response to presidential candidate Herman Cain’s support for a local ban on the building of a Muslim mosque.

The president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was asked on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” television program to respond to the Republican’s endorsement of any local government’s prohibiting construction of a mosque in its community.

“First of all, I would respectfully encourage him to read the First Amendment to the Constitution, where it says that the government shall not interfere with the free exercise of religion,” Land said, adding the First Amendment “is one of those amendments that is too important and protects rights that are too central to our guaranteed rights in this country to be left with a local option. Mr. Cain, of all people, as an African American, should understand that our civil rights have to be guaranteed at a federal level.”

On “Fox News Sunday” July 17, Cain said he opposes the building of a new mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., whose residents, he said, “are objecting to the fact that Islam is both religion and [a] set of laws, Shariah law.”

The United States Constitution “guarantees separation of church and state,” Cain said. “Islam combines church and state.”

Land said, “Muslims have a right to have places of worship. … Shariah law is unconstitutional. Shariah law violates the First Amendment, which guarantees separation of church and state and guarantees separation of mosque and state. Secondly, it violates the clauses that protect equal rights, because under Shariah law women do not have equal rights.

“I would say, ‘Don’t throw out the baby with the bath, Mr. Cain.’ Muslims have a right to have places of worship, maybe not places of worship exactly where they want to have them, because that’s why we have zoning laws…. If they’re trying to promote Shariah law or impose Shariah law at any level, that’s unconstitutional.”

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