I recently wrote the following response to an e-mail I received proposing that all Muslims be ejected from the United States. I thought it worth reposting, even though I think it should go without saying:

Is that supposed to be a serious proposal? If so, it means that we should strip something like 5 million people of their citizenship and eject them from the country — solely based upon their private religious beliefs. Some of those people would have no ties to any terrorist or Islamist organizations, nor even sympathy for them.

That would be the end of freedom of conscience in America. It would mean that Christians would be free to eject their devils from the US, namely “secular humananists” and other godless heathens, provided they could muster the vote. Then the Christian Reconstructionists would be free to make America into a thoroughly Christian nation, complete with the stoning of adulterers, abortionists, and homosexuals.

People have the absolute, inalienable right to believe what they please. They do not have the right to support enemy countries, such as by funneling money through charities to Hezbollah. They do not have the right to involve themselves in organizations seeking the violent overthrow of the US government. That’s the line. Yes, our government permits Muslims to cross that line, just as they did with the communists decades ago. That does not justify violating it in the other direction. It would be morally wrong to do so — and the consequences would be horrifying.