The original Oklahoma anti-Sharia law that passed with 70% of the vote in November 2010 was poorly written, and Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists immediately argued before a Leftist judge that the law would infringe upon Muslims’ religious rights. They still make headway using that argument with judges and lawmakers who are ignorant of the nature of Sharia.
In reality, no one cares about individual Muslim religious practice or wants to restrict it. The purpose of anti-Sharia laws is not to stop Muslims from getting married in Islamic religious ceremonies or to restrict their religious practice in other ways, but to stop the political and supremacist aspects of Islam that infringe upon the rights and freedoms of non-Muslims, denying the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and the equality of rights of all people before the law. This is the case that must be made. Let’s hope this law fares better.
“NC Senate passes “˜Sharia law” bill,” by Annalise Frank for the Raleigh News & Observer, July 19:
RALEIGH “” The state Senate on Friday passed a bill that would keep courts from recognizing Sharia law.
While proponents of the legislation said it would keep people safe from foreign laws, critics derided the bill as sending a message of intolerance and bigotry to followers of Islam.
The Senate had already approved the measure when it was attached to a controversial measure that would impose stricter regulations on abortion providers in the state. But the foreign law provision wasn’t sufficiently critiqued because abortion overwhelmed the floor debate, said Sen. Floyd McKissick, a Democrat from Durham.
Now called House Bill 522, the provision’s contents haven’t changed. It reminds judges that the U.S. and N.C. constitutions are the law of the land and no foreign law can supersede them. Sometimes international laws are used in court as evidence before a judge, or in written opinions. But this bill would stop judges from considering foreign law when it violates a citizen’s constitutional rights.
“Unfortunately we have judges from time to time “¦ that sometimes seem to forget what the supreme law of the land is, and sometimes make improper rulings,” said Sen. E.S. “Buck” Newton, a Wilson Republican and the legislation’s Senate sponsor.
Though the bill doesn’t specifically mention it, Newton was clear during Friday”s session that the legislation targets Sharia law, a legal system based on the religious and moral tenants of Islam. Few Muslim countries apply the entire body of rules, instead choosing measures relevant to them. More than 60 countries use at least part of Sharia law in their governance.
Its improper use has “worked to deprive” U.S. citizens and immigrants of their constitutional rights, Newton said. There have been 27 reported cases around the country in which Sharia law has been used, he added.
More than 20 states have introduced legislation banning Sharia law or foreign law in state courts. Many bills — including North Carolina’s — would apply only to cases in which the application of foreign law would violate a person’s constitutional rights.
That means that the Jewish groups that oppose this law are being short-sighted. It really wouldn’t affect them at all.
Sen. Ellie Kinnaird of Chapel Hill, a Democrat, said she thinks the bill’s sponsors don’t truly mean to inform judges that foreign law is unacceptable, but rather the people of North Carolina.
“I think the audience is really wider,” Kinnaird said.
The N.C. Bar Association opposed the bill in its former incarnation, House Bill 695. The American Bar Association said in a resolution that the passage of such bills will have a “widespread negative impact on business, adversely affecting “¦ economic development in the states in which such a law is passed and in U.S. foreign commerce generally.”
The danger doesn’t come from the legislation’s exact wording, said Omid Safi, a professor of religious studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. He contends this wave of anti-foreign-law legislation comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of Sharia law and a “bigoted” perception of Muslims.
“We would be delighted to have a conversation about what Sharia law actually is and what it is not,” he said. “It would be important, if we”re passing legislation on the topic, for (lawmakers who support the bill) to actually benefit from the expertise of people who might actually know something about the subject.”
That would be a good idea indeed. People do need to know what Sharia really is. But are they going to find out from Omid Safi? Omid Safi is an extremely dishonest pseudo-academic of extraordinarily low character. He peddles soothing nonsense to the easy marks at the Huffington Post about respecting other people, but elsewhere he shows his true colors: he has falsely claimed that I threatened to kill him and his family, after I dared to challenge his smear of me with the manipulative Muslim Brotherhood neologism of “Islamophobe” and offered to come to the class where he was defaming me and engage in discussion and debate with him and his students. Somehow I doubt that the likes of Omid Safi are going to tell the truth about Sharia.
The bill wouldn’t affect only Sharia law. Jewish organizations have spoken out against anti-foreign-law legislation across the United States because the measures could negate the common Jewish practice of resolving disputes according to their religious laws, Halacha.
It shouldn’t. If it does, it is poorly written, and needs to be revised.