Tuesday on MSNBC’s “NewsNation,” while discussing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims coming into the United States, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) used the Ku Klux Klan as an example of a “Christian” organization and why an entire religion shouldn’t be banned.
Clyburn said, “Well, you know, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Speaker Ryan. I think he is a fine person. I think he is a good speaker. I would hope that the members of his conference will allow him to be a Speaker of the House and not a mouthpiece for any one group of people in the house or for any one entity outside of the House. So Speaker Ryan, I believe, is being tortured by so many of his members until he cannot do what he needs to do to be a good fulfilling Speaker of the House. The same thing goes true for his party nominee for president.”
“He himself has accused him of being a textbook racist and I would like to say to Mr. Trump and to my colleague, Mr. McHenry who comes from North Carolina, I’m from South Carolina, and both of us remember the original name of the Ku Klux Klan was the White Knights, White Christian Knights,” he continued. “People misuse religion all the time. And because somebody is misusing Muslims or that faith, we ought not be criticizing the entire religion. We don’t criticize all Christians because there are a lot of people who do things that’s called white supremacists as Christians. And so there are renegades in every religion, renegades in every ethnic background, and let’s treat them as they should be treated and not have any aspersions cast on any religion. The Muslim faith, Islamic faith is an honorable faith and we ought to treat it that way.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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