The undertone of “foreign” law clearly alludes to Islamic Sharia.
Why are so many states considering anti-Sharia legislation? The American legal system allows courts to respect those foreign laws that do not contradict any existing law in some civil cases. American Jews routinely take advantage of such a provision to settle family and business disputes through rabbinical law. American Muslims should, therefore, be able to request Sharia laws be considered for resolving similar disputes without threatening the secular nature of American law.
Anti-Sharia legislation advocates argue that Sharia law is different because it violates basic human rights. Others, however, note that no need for anti-Sharia legislation exists because if an aspect of Sharia law violates a constitutional provision, the Supremacy Clause voids it.
Justified or not, Republican presidential candidates used the so-called issue of “creeping Sharia” to gear up their campaigns this year.
“I’d support a Muslim running for president only if he’d commit to give up Sharia,” Newt Gingrich said in January. Earlier he commented, “I believe Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”
Similarly, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., during her presidential campaign, declared that Sharia “must be resisted across the United States.”
Another Republican presidential hopeful, Herman Cain, condemned the “attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government.”
These candidates exploited a minority, but growing, public opinion. According to a joint August 2011 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, nearly 30 percent of Americans believe Muslims are trying to establish Sharia in America. A similar poll in February 2011 showed that only 23 percent thought so.
Americans’ growing fear of Sharia is not without reason. Americans are aware of women being stoned for adultery in Iran and of young girls being sprayed with acid for going to school in Afghanistan. Recent images of Pastor Nadarkhani, who is awaiting his execution for the crime of apostasy in Iran, as well as a Saudi Mufti’s fatwa to “destroy all churches of the region” are also fresh in our minds.
But is Sharia law to blame? Read further.
Categories: Americas, Secularism, Separation of Church and State, Sharia, Sharia Law
Amazing how every Tom, Dick and Harry in the West has become an expert in Sharia Law! (or think he has)…
Great subject. Keep in mind the anti-Sharia law campaign in US with at least one State already passing such a law.
We have a great responsibility to educate American Public in particular our politicians that already US laws (including its Constitution)include many features of Islamic laws roots of which can be found only in Holy Book- The Holy Quran.
Mainstream Muslims in US specially CAIR and other organizations have taken a rather stiff approach. Open Door – educational policy should in place to invite the very people who anti-Sharia Law.
We will have to draw a stark distinction between what the so called Muslim clerics hold as Shariah and what exactly is the law of the Quran using the same standard as argued by the opponents.