Below is a truly welcome bit of news. I was informed of this by ACT for America, which also welcomes the announcement that the American Islamic Leadership Coalition is supporting an effort to place an anti-foreign measure into Michigan state law (Assembly bill HB 4679).
http://americanislamicleadership.org/AILC_Response_MI
I must confess that I had not been aware of this group, but will educate myself about them. I note that Zuhdi Jasser's American Islamic Forum for Democracy has also acknowledged AILC. This group is less than a year old and Jasser is also a member.
http://americanislamicleadership.org/link1
It is important to differentiate between true moderate and patriotic American Muslim groups and phony moderate groups like CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MAS, ICNA and others. I will be adding AILC to my links and following their activities.
I see Gary is afraid to even allow comments on this post.
ReplyDeleteSay what?? Did you post a comment?
ReplyDeleteYes, and I got a message telling me is would appear after moderation. Apparently it didn't reach you either. Let's blame Blogger -- Lord knows they've had enough aggravating loopiness.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine why an Islamic group might line up to support such legislation, just to show that they are NOT seeking to have some semblance of Shariah become the civil and criminal law of the land.
But, not being Muslim, I am free to say that these legislators are indulging in pointless, ignorant grandstanding.
First, most of them couldn't say what Shariah IS, if asked. They could no doubt recite horror stories about female genital mutilation, honor killings, etc. If asked why they equate that to Shariah, they would answer that it is "common knowledge" or they heard it on their favorite talk show -- or maybe reading Fousesquawk.
I don't know EXACTLY what Shariah consists of either. I do know that it varies from sect to sect, from country to country, sometimes even from village to village.
The danger is not that Shariah will "creep into" our law. The danger is that some governments will Establish a religion as the official faith. Those government then take it upon themselves to legislate what ARE the tenets of the faith. Bloody experience with such measures is what inspired the first two clauses of our First Amendment. Most faiths, absent legislative Establishment, don't even agree internally on what the faith requires.
If the measures proposed to not get specific, courts will throw them out as void for vagueness. Nobody would have fair warning of what exactly constitutes Shariah. If the measures get specific, the legislature will be taking it upon themselves to determine what Muslim law requires -- which could be either comic or tragic.
On the other hand, if anyone tries to cite a haddith as persuasive, let alone mandatory, precedent in any U.S. court, it will be thrown out. So this is a meaningless circus, and a waste of taxpayers' money.