Think Progress noted over the weekend that Herman Cain, the pizza entrepreneur who’s running for the GOP nomination, said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet or a federal judgeship.

There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.

Yes, I know that Mr. Cain has no chance whatsoever of getting to be the Republican nominee in 2012, but as Steve Benen noted, he’s not the only GOP candidate with this point of view.

In the fall of 2007, Romney said he would not consider Muslim Americans for his cabinet. Indeed, he said this more than once, in front of plenty of witnesses.

Aside from the little detail that it’s unconstitutional to apply a religious test to someone for public office, Mr. Romney has himself faced questions from people in his own party about his Mormon faith, and there is a strong base of Republican voters who would no sooner vote for a Mormon than they would for a Muslim.

I love irony.