Anti-Sharia Advocates: We’ve Not Yet Begun to Fight

 

By now you’ve probably read about the ongoing legal wrangling over Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment to ban Sharia. There are plenty of reasons to pick on Oklahoma, but it turns out the state actually has plenty of allies in the fight against Islamic law. Per USA Today:

Although Oklahoma’s law is the first to come under court scrutiny, legislators in at least seven states, including Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah, have proposed similar laws, the National Conference of State Legislatures says.

Key quote:

“It’s not an issue in Utah,” [state rep. Carl Wimmer] says, “but I wanted to make sure it doesn’t become an issue in Utah.”

Well, that settles it, then.

In an interesting twist, Wimmer (top left) was ultimately forced to withdraw his bill when he discovered that it would have posed significant barriers to Utah companies conducting business overseas. But he’s managed to stay busy in the interim,  introducing legislation to nullify the Affordable Care Act, criminalize miscarriages, and make the Browning 1911 Utah’s state gun.

As you’d expect, most of the major Sharia-related pieces of legislation (like the South Carolina and Florida bills, neither of which passed) don’t specifically reference Sharia; it’s a lot easier to make your case to the public if you couch it as simply a blanket provision to ward off generic foreign interference.

But the timing—and public statements by their backers—make the intent of the proposals pretty transparent. State representative Ernest Wooton, for instance, who sponsored Louisiana’s innocuous-sounding proposal, prefaced testimony on the bill by noting, “there’s a movement nationwide to insinuate Sharia or Islamic law into American jurisprudence.” Here’s Tennessee’s bill, which was signed into law, and was sponsored by congresswoman-elect Diane Black—whose district includes the anti-Sharia hotbed of Murfreesboro).

And then there’s Arizona, which, in characteristic fashion, made everyone else’s bill look somewhat tame. Brought to the floor by two legislators who authored the state’s birther bill and the S.B. 1070 immigration law, the act (pdf) would have also added canon law, Halacha, and…Karma to the forbidden list. Banning Karma? I see no way that could come back to bite them.

Anyway, it’s all a little nuts, but, as RNS reports, Oklahoma’s legal hurdles have only inspired activists to redouble their efforts:

[E]ven if this referendum fails in the courts, Sekulow said anti-Shariah activists would not be deterred from introducing similar measures in other states. “We’ve already started drafting amendments similar to this that would be even more constitutionally airtight,” Sekulow said.

To be continued…

 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate