ANDREW MCCARTHY: Big thing, Laura, is that Islam, strictly speaking, is not merely a religion. So everybody who's in an uproar over what he said on the basis of thinking that this is unconstitutionally applying a religious test to Islam is assuming that Islam is a religion just like other religions that we're familiar with in the west. And the challenge with Islam is to sort out the people who are pro-Western Muslims who accept the religious tenets of Islam -- because Islam does have religious tenet -- from the Islamic supremacists who want to impose the societal framework of Islam -- namely, Sharia, its legal code -- on all of society. And that's an interpretation of Islam that is mainstream from the source countries of immigration and that does not accept a division between spiritual sphere of life versus the political and civic sphere. Let's take Islam out of this for a second. If communism had been smart enough to sprinkle a couple of religious tenets into what otherwise is a sweeping ideological program that has nothing to do with religion, would we have said, gee we can't vet communists for fidelity to the Constitution because that would violate our religious test principles and our religious liberties principles? I don't think we'd ever have done anything so stupid. But the problem with Trump is, I'm not sure how much of a grasp he has on this fire that he's playing with and as a result I worry that he's going to be tainted as a bigot. And I'm afraid that everybody who tries to sort out what's meritorious versus what's not in what he's saying is going to be tainted that way. 

Previously:

Even Laura Ingraham Thinks “Trump's Going To Have To Walk” Back His Plan To Ban Muslim Entry Into US

Laura Ingraham: Trump Resonates With GOP Despite Insults Because He's Willing To Say Things That “No One Else Is Saying”

The Daily Show's Trevor Noah Astonished By Fox Analyst's Insult Of Obama

NBC News' Richard Engel On Trump's Proposal To Ban Muslims: “This Is Not The Country I Know”

As Trump Calls For Ban On Muslim Immigration, Fox Denies Existence Anti-Muslim “Backlash”