During a cerebral exchange with retired Dr. Ben Carson about the purpose of displaying the Ten Commandments in U.S. schools, CNN's Abby Phillip presented a tricky hypothetical.
Phillip asked: "I'm saying that the Ten Commandments comes from your religious belief in the Christian Bible... would you be comfortable, for example, with a public school hanging the five pillars of Islam in a classroom?"
"I wouldn't have any problem with that if that's what the people wanted," Carson told her.
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The retired neurosurgeon, who served as Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development during Trump's term in the White House, also admitted he's vying to become his Vice President nominee in the 2024 GOP ticket.
He appeared compelled to push the values of the Ten Commandments to be universal tenets — well beyond their religious provenance.
"Can tell me what is wrong with 'Thou shall not kill', 'Thou shall not steal', 'Thou shall not lie', 'Thou not envy... just explain to me what's wrong with those things," hea sked Phillip.
She answered, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with those things."
Carson broke in, "So why wouldn't we want to teach our children those things?"
But Phillip explained: "I think the issue at hand is a legal one."
"My point is, Dr. Carson, a lot of people would and do disagree with you that the idea that the founding fathers believe that the government should be putting its thumb on the scale for any particular religion versus saying to whoever has a religion they can exercise that however way they want," Phillip challenged him.
And he responded to her question with a question of his own.
"But are you saying that the Ten Commandments are a religion?"
Phillip clarified.
"I'm saying that the Ten Commandments comes from your religious belief in the Christian Bible."
The kernel of their discussion about blurring the church and state lines in American modern society stems from legislation signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landy requiring public schools to put on display Ten Commandments.
During their discussion, there was a moment when Phillip took to reading to Carson a portion of the language in the First Amendment.
Carson tried to paraphrase it at first.
"The First Amendment," he stated, "says you don't want to prohibit the free exercise of religion."
Phillip had the language prepped.
"It also says, Dr. Carson, 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...'"
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