That's the refrain I get from my critical readers. We have laws in America. We have the Constitution. We have separation of Church and State. All this talk of Sharia getting into our legal system is nothing but hysteria.
The below report comes from Soeren Kern of the New York-based Hudson Institute. It concerns what is happening already in Britain and Germany.
http://www.hudson-ny.org/2397/islamic-sharia-law-germany
If you want to disregard the statements from various radical American Muslim imams like Abdul Alim Musa and even the so-called moderates like Faisal Rauf, go ahead. But you might consider this: How many Supreme Court Justices have indicated an openness to considering foreign or international law in reaching legal decisions? Let us begin with Stephen Breyer.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/supreme-court-looks-to-fo_n_521265.html
Add Justice Ginsburg to that count.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=489658
Then there is Anthony Kennedy, the so-called "swing vote" on the court.
http://faculty.cua.edu/pennington/Law111/ToobinForeignLaw.htm
In addition, the below Newsmax article adds the same concern about Elena Kagan and, to a lesser extent, Sonia Sotomayor.
http://www.newsmax.com/US/kagan-washington-times-editorial/2010/05/27/id/360362
They are the 4 ultra liberals on the court plus Kennedy. The 5 needed votes may be there already. If Obama gets a chance to replace one of the 4 conservatives, watch out. There is no telling how such a court would rule on the question of acceding to shariah law in "some small, civil ways, perhaps."
No harm in that, right?
Right?
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I just don't think that Americans would stand for it no matter the opinion of the Court. Abe Lincoln once said (I think) that "Justice Taney has made his decision. Let him now enforce it."
I don't worry about this much frankly. At least at this point. I just don't think it would be tolerated here. Do I have my head in the sand? I hope not.
Actually, it was Andrew Jackson who said Justice Marshall had made his decision, affirming the right of Cherokees to remain in Georgia, let him now enforce it. If Eisenhower had taken the same approach to Brown v. Board of Education, we might have had a wild blood bath on our hands. Fortunately, even though Eisenhower had lobbied Earl Warren at a White House dinner that southerners "are good people, they just don't want their sweet little daughters sitting next to some big black buck," even though he was personally shocked that white college students should be expected to sit in the same room with black college students without at least a wall of chicken wire separating them, even so, he sent in the U.S. army rather than have a decision of the Supreme Court flouted by a mob.
But I don't worry about this much either, because I don't believe you could get two votes on the Supreme Court to give enforceable civil or criminal status to religious law. Gary WANTS this to happen, so he can say "I told you so." He's becoming more and more paranoid in his utterances, and he will string together anything he can to eke out a smidgeon of possibility.
Gary obviously hasn't read the stare decisis that any Supreme Court justice would have to work with even if they wanted to arrive at the result he fears.
New York state tried once to establish legal standards for a grocery store that advertised its food as kosher. The Supreme Court struck it down, on the ground that kosher is a religious law, and no business of the state.
Georgia used to have a law instructing a jury in a civil suit over church property to examine which of the parties more faithfully adhered to the doctrines of the church in question. The Supreme Court struck that down, because courts have no business passing on matters of faith and doctrine.
Any consideration of foreign law is, at best, "persuasive," IF the court cares to take it as such. It is never mandatory law. It may be referred to. It does not trump the letter of the Constitution. But Gary has no faith in America or our institutions, not even in our Constitution. Some patriot.
"New York state tried once to establish legal standards for a grocery store that advertised its food as kosher. The Supreme Court struck it down, on the ground that kosher is a religious law, and no business of the state."
Not so in California. Almost all of our food in the Golden State has to have the official Jewish seal of approval ("K" symbols to mark the products as Kosher).
Not to mention that Jews haves strung wires around entire neighborhoods and communities in SoCal to build their eruvs.
Anonymous,
I surmise that you are a regular reader of LA's Voz de Aztlan, a vicious anti-Semitic web site whose editor actually accompanied the despeicable George Galloway when he delivered aid and money to hamas.
Or possibly you are the editor himself. At any rate, people like you are wise to remain anonymous. You don't have the courage to put your name to your sick beliefs.
Racist? Sick beliefs? From Me?
No way Gary Fouse. There was nothing bigoted or untruthful in my previous post.
"Sharia/Islamic Law: It Can't Happen Here?"
Halakha/Jewish Law: It HAS Happened Here!
Your pro-Jewish sympathies have blinded you from seeing the truth.
Anonymous, Gary has understandably lost patience with your inane utterings, but for the sake of other readers, and because I enjoy this, I will undertake to explain the difference between private action and state action.
The government may not decree what is or is not kosher. Kosher foods are given stamps of approval by private religious organizations, and consumers seeking kosher foods have to decide whether to trust these organizations. Government action in this field would be "establishment of religion." Private action is "free exercise of religion."
The New York legislature's intent was not to interfere in Jewish law, but to provide some truth-in-advertising consumer protection. It occurs to me that this could have been accomplished constitutionally by providing that:
ANYONE enaged in commerce within the state (or interestate commerce if the law originated with congress), who sells merchandise advertised as complying with ANY religious law or standard, shall conspicuously post
A) The name and address of any religious authority relied upon for the conformity and purity of the merchandise,
B) The empirical content and process relied upon as meeting the standards of the religious law in question, and the source for these standards, and
C) The name and business address of any individual or corporate entity that performed inspection of the merchandise to insure conformity and purity.
The law could also provide that any merchant knowingly representing that merchandise is of the condition posted and advertised, knowing this to be false, is liable to prosecution for lying to consumers.
The state would be taking no position on what kosher, or halal, or anything else, consists of, but would be requiring merchants to inform their customers what the merchant MEANS by advertising food as kosher, or halal, etc., and to do so honestly.
Siarlys,
I wouldn't waste too many words on Anonymous.
Like I said Gary, its for the sake of other readers.
Apparently it was Jackson/Marshall instead of Lincoln/Taney. I hate it when that happens. I was thinking it was the Lincoln/Taney dispute over habeas corpus. At any rate, on to more important matters.
Anonymous mentions that "Jews have strung wires over entire neighborhoods..." Is this true? I have not heard such. I am sure there are neighborhoods that have Jewish people living in them that employ private security like many other wealthy communities chose to do. Perhaps this Anonymous fool is stretching the truth a bit.
The time may well come that entire neighborhoods will need to "stretch wires" for protection The reasons are fairly obvious.
Lincoln did ignore a writ of habeas corpus from Taney, he just didn't use the same provocative words. He was trying to tread very carefully, but when whole armies are in open rebellion against the United States, led by better than half of living West Point graduates, if that isn't a case of "Rebellion" in which "the public safety" requires suspension of the writ, I can't imagine what would qualify.
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