Bradlee Dean talks Ground Zero mosque on Fox News

Minnesota’s Christian hard rock band frontman had his turn as a Fox News commentator on Tuesday. Bradlee Dean, head of You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, was invited to participate in a panel discussing plans for a Muslim community center blocks away from Ground Zero, the site of the Al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center. Dean, no stranger to controversy due to his comments in support of the death penalty for gays in Muslim countries, took a different track on Monday, saying that foreigners coming to America need to “see it our way.” Dean’s relationships with gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer and Rep. Michele Bachmann have come under scrutiny in recent weeks.

On Fox and Friends, Dean said, “I see the absolute arrogance and absolute disrespect for the American people here. It’s always the American people who have to sit down and basically accept everyone for who they are when they come into America.”

He added, “It’s time for the American people to stand up and say to the foreigners that are coming to our country, ‘It’s time for you to see it our way and when we say no as Americans it’s means just that; you aren’t doing it here.’”

Here’s video of the full exchange:

He’s not the first Minnesotan to weigh in about a neighborhood project in New York City: Gov. Tim Pawlenty earned rebukes from Muslim groups in Minnesota and from Rep. Keith Ellison for calling the center “inappropriate,” and the Minnesota-based head of the National Council of Churches, the Rev. Peg Chemberlin, was among 40 religious leaders calling out some of the opposition as “xenophobia and religious bigotry.“