The Triumph of Islama-phobia in America

[xiinfaniin]

November 14, 2010

Oklahoma Surprise: Islam as an Election IssueBy JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

 

OKLAHOMA CITY — Cory Williams, a Democratic state representative from Stillwater, expected his opponent in the recent election to label him a free-spending liberal allied with President Obama.

 

He did not foresee that he would be accused of trying to subject Oklahomans to Islamic law.

 

Mr. Williams was one of 10 Democrats who voted against putting a state constitutional amendment on the ballot that would forbid state judges from considering international or Islamic law in deciding cases. He considered the idea unnecessary, since the First Amendment already bans state-imposed religion.

 

His Republican challenger sent out mailers showing him next to a shadowy figure in an Arab headdress. On the other side, the flier said Mr. Williams wanted to allow “Islamic ‘Shariah’ law to be used by Oklahoma courts” and suggested that he was part of “an international movement, supported by militant Muslims and liberals,” to establish Islamic law throughout the world.

 

“At the end of the day, it was just fearmongering,” Mr. Williams said.

 

He won by 280 votes, but many of his fellow Democrats failed to hold their seats. The amendment passed with 70 percent of the vote and helped drive record turnout in Republican strongholds. For the first time in the state, Republicans will now control the governor’s office and have veto-proof majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

 

Other states where Republicans seized control of all reins of government in this election are Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

 

In Oklahoma, many conservative Democrats from rural areas lost, sounding a death knell for the state’s famous Blue Dogs, who have wielded power since the 1930s, pollsters and some Democrats say.

 

Politicians on all sides here predict that a raft of conservative bills that had been vetoed by Gov. Brad Henry, a moderate Democrat, will sail through next year, along with a few new ones.

 

The Republican governor-elect, Mary Fallin, a former member of Congress, is not only the first woman to be elected to the office, but also an archconservative allied with right-wing Republican lawmakers who call themselves the Liberty Caucus.

 

Voters also passed ballot initiatives on hot conservative issues, measures that had had little chance of becoming law under Mr. Henry.

 

Those initiatives show the extent of the conservative triumph here and how the anxiety among some voters about illegal immigrants and Muslims has become a potent political weapon.

 

For instance, voters overwhelmingly approved measures making English the state’s official language and requiring picture identification at the polls. Democrats maintain that both measures make it harder for Hispanic immigrants to vote or go to school, and they had succeeded in stopping them in the past.

 

But nowhere was the culture clash more stark than on the amendment regarding Shariah law, which put Democrats of a secular bent at odds with the conservative Christians who make up the backbone of the Republican Party.

 

Supporters of the amendment acknowledge that there is no evidence Islamic law had ever been brought up as a defense in the state courts. But they point to a recent case in New Jersey in which a judge had considered Shariah law in denying a restraining order to a Moroccan woman who said her former husband had raped her while they were married. The decision was overturned.

 

They also note that Shariah courts have been set up in England, where they have the power under a 1996 law to act as arbitration tribunals in Muslim civil disputes, provided all parties agree to abide by the ruling.

 

“This is a pre-emptive strike,” said the bill’s main author, State Representative Rex Duncan, a Republican from Sand Springs.

 

Before the vote, Mr. Duncan described the Shariah tribunals in England as “a cancer” and predicted that Muslims would come to America to take away “liberties and freedom from our children.” In an interview on MSNBC, he said: “This is a war for the survival of America. It’s a cultural war.” (In 2007, Mr. Duncan rejected a gift of a Koran from a council Mr. Henry created, saying, “Most Oklahomans do not endorse the idea of killing innocent women and children in the name of ideology.”)

 

Mr. Duncan, who had to step down because of term limits, won a close race for district attorney in Osage and Pawnee Counties. His sponsorship of the amendment helped him win there, local pollsters and politicians say. Across the state, the ballot initiative pulled conservatives to the polls.

 

“It was inflammatory, and it got people to turn out,” said State Representative Wallace Collins, a Democrat from Norman who lost a close race. “It worked for them.”

 

The day after the election, Muneer Awad, executive director of the local Council on American-Islamic Relations, filed a lawsuit. Mr. Awad argued that the amendment violated the freedom of religion clause of the United States Constitution, because it singled out Shariah law and Islam for special treatment rather than banning consideration of all religious codes. That amounts to state disapproval of Islam, he argued.

 

Last Monday, Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange of Federal District Court agreed that Mr. Awad’s complaint had merit, finding that the amendment’s “primary purpose inhibits religion.” She temporarily halted the certification of the election results and scheduled a hearing for next week.

 

Outside the courthouse, Mr. Duncan said the restraining order “thwarts the will of the people.” He said the amendment was never intended as an attack on Muslims, but as an effort to prevent what he called “activist judges” from using Islamic law in deciding cases.

 

Law professors have begun to raise questions about the unintended consequences of the amendment. Because it also “forbids courts from using or considering international law,” it could complicate contractual arrangements between Oklahoma companies and those with headquarters abroad. The amendment might also prevent judges from referring to the Ten Commandments or exploring English common law in their decisions.

 

“You throw a series of ambiguous ill-conceived words into the State Constitution and you don’t know what will happen,” said Harry F. Tepker Jr., a law professor at the University of Oklahoma. “It’s a mess.”

 

Ms. Fallin, who has strong support from business, has begun to back away from the amendment, even though she supported it. “It’s something that she will have to meet with the attorney general on and look at the legal specifics,” said Alex Weintz, a spokesman.

 

Muslim leaders in Oklahoma said the amendment felt like a slap in the face. They worry that marriages, wills, divorces and contracts — often drawn up between parties under Islamic principles then submitted to a court for approval — will no longer be valid. Jews and Roman Catholics often follow the same procedure in civil matters.

 

But many Muslims said they were more worried about the anti-Muslim mood that fueled the amendment’s passage. The vote here follows the controversy over a Christian pastor’s aborted plan to burn Korans in Florida and the opposition to an Islamic community center near ground zero in Manhattan.

 

Large mosques in Oklahoma City and Tulsa have been flooded with hateful e-mail since the suit was filed, including a video of a man destroying a mosque, Muslim leaders said.

 

“Islamophobia is really popular,” said Mr. Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “With fear and hate, you really rally up a lot of supporters.”

 

The politicians backing the amendment, however, deny the accusations of fearmongering.

 

“America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles — that’s the basis of our laws, and people try to deny it,” said State Representative Mike Reynolds, a Republican who was an author of the bill. “I believe there is an awakening of people concerned about Christian values in our nation, and they are starting to express themselves.”

 

Source : NY Times

[Alpha Blondy]

muslims need to understand that they can never really be treated as 'citizens'. they are after all ''outsiders''. perhaps, under law, all citizen deserve same treatment but i reckon muslims expect preferential treatment. while muslims are killing apostates.

 

there is a clash of civilisations. there can be no compromise and so called 'moderate' Muslims need to stop being apologists.

 

whats the purpose of this article. these views are all too often heard, often in private conversations, but now it has entered the public discourse.

[ismacil mire]

Originally posted by CarmeloBrown:

muslims need to understand that they can never really be treated as 'citizens'. they are after all ''outsiders''. perhaps, under law, all citizen deserve same treatment but i reckon muslims expect preferential treatment. while muslims are killing apostates.

 

there is a clash of civilisations. there can be no compromise and so called 'moderate' Muslims need to stop being apologists.

 

whats the purpose of this article. these views are all too often heard, often in private conversations, but now it has entered the public discourse.

indeed yaa carmel,I remember listening to the renowned historian Bernard Lewis once saying " this is a clash between Islam & Christianity,but the moderates on both sides just don't know it". maqaadiir rabaaneyah ayaa meesha ka socota.

( ولن ترضى عنك اليهود ولا النصارى حتى تتبع ملتهم )

[xiinfaniin]

Oklahoma's Anti-Shariah Law Put On Hold, For Now

by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

 

November 8, 2010 A federal judge on Monday temporarily stopped Oklahoma's new anti-Shariah law from taking effect.

 

Oklahoma's law — a ballot initiative approved by 70 percent of Oklahomans in the Nov. 2 elections — would change the state constitution to prohibit courts from considering international or Muslim law when deciding cases.

 

Muneer Awad, head of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wasn't surprised at the Nov. 2 vote — but he was sad and worried.

 

"You have a state-endorsed amendment in our Constitution that isolates, targets and marginalizes Muslims as a threat to the American way of life," says Awad. "We would be stigmatized by this amendment as being an unequal member in the political community in the state of Oklahoma."

 

Just days after the ballot initiative was approved, Awad challenged it in federal court, telling Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange that the amendment curtails his religious freedom. After a brief hearing on Monday, Miles-LaGrange granted a temporary restraining order and said the law may not be certified until all the constitutional arguments are heard.

 

In the courtroom were the sponsors of the amendment, state Rep. Rex Duncan and Sen. Anthony Sykes. Both men said they were prompted in part by a case in New Jersey, in which a state judge refused to give a wife a protective order after her husband repeatedly raped her, because the judge said he must defer to Islamic law. The decision was quickly overturned by an appellate court. Neither Duncan nor Sykes returned repeated calls from NPR, but in another interview posted on his website, Sykes justified the Shariah amendment this way:

 

"They certainly don't respect equal treatment regardless of gender in Shariah law," Sykes says. "They're very abusive and downright ill-treat women as unequal citizens in Shariah law, and we certainly don't want that here in America."

 

What The Law Would Do

 

"It's a ridiculous and offensive stereotype, an attempt to capitalize on the fears of people who don't know anything about Islam," says Awad. "We already have laws that prevent violence against women: You can't engage in a crime and consider it somehow related to your faith."

 

Constitutional scholars agree. They say that if a religious practice conflicts with American law, the courts will strike it down; the New Jersey appellate court's quick response in the case of marital abuse supports that principle.

 

Marc Stern, a First Amendment lawyer with the American Jewish Committee, says there's no way that fundamentalist Islamic law will be imported here.

 

"Stoning, cutting off of hands, people being forced to wear veils and the like are simply not going to happen with the assistance of the courts," Stern says.

 

So what would the new amendment do? Stern says it would favor other religious practices over Islamic ones. For example, Stern says, it is common for a court to accept a will, a prenuptial agreement or a contract based on religious law.

 

"This amendment seems to say the courts can take no notice of Shariah law," he says. "It doesn't say you can't take notice of canon or Jewish or any other form of religious law that imposes requirements on religious believers. That, alone, would seem to be grounds for throwing this out."

 

Looking Ahead

 

The amendment opens a Pandora's box of legal problems aside from the First Amendment issues, says Joseph Thai, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma's College of Law. It would bar courts in the state from recognizing all international law, including treaties and international business contracts that are often based on foreign law. He wonders, why would any foreign company do business with Oklahoma?

 

"I think this hurts Oklahoma’s economy because it chills international investment to the extent that international investors rely on international law to protect their contract rights," Thai says. "I think it also hurts Oklahoma more broadly because it makes Oklahoma seem like a less welcoming place for outsiders."

 

It's difficult to find anyone who believes Oklahoma's new law will survive. But that will be determined later. The next hearing — when the state government defends the measure — is scheduled for Nov. 22.

 

Source: NPR

[STOIC]

Xiin,Islamophobes will always run away from their Own shadows. There is no evidence Islamic law had ever been brought up as a defense in the state courts of Oklahoma.This was clearly a fear-mongering by the Islamophobes.When the anti-Shariah law was passed in Oklahoma one of my closest undergraduate friend who is a lawyer now filed a lawsuit arguing that the amendment violated his freedom of religion clause of the constitution singling out his religion.My friend was recently invited by Rachel Maddow and he explained the issue.One of my favorite quote of my friend was "My constitutional rights are being violated through the condemnation of my faith” I'm wishing him all the victory Allah can bring him his way.Good to see friends defending Our religion in an articulate and professional way!

 

 

Rachel Maddow show

[SayidSomal]

Where is this story at now?

 

Xiin - keep us updated.

[Sultan Dheere]

Their boundaries on taking the moral high-ground on virtually everything has no end. This is, after all, a country who treats black people and women as second class citizens. Sexual exploitations of women and racial discrimination against ethnic minorities occurs on daily basis, and then they want to lecture us on morality and how to live life.

 

Notice it is only Christians and [more often] Muslims who get slaughtered in the press every day. Any media personality will get into hot water for even the smallest criticism of the Jewish faith & the Jewish people.

[xiinfaniin]

Court Extends Ban on Okla. Sharia Amendment

 

A federal judge has extended a restraining order blocking a voter-approved ban on Islamic Sharia law in Oklahoma.

 

"It's certainly not a matter to be taken lightly with what is at stake here," U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange said at the end of a two-hour hearing Monday.

 

The judge said she needs at least a week to consider the suit brought by Oklahoma City resident Muneer Awad.

 

Awad, a member of the local council on American Islamic Relations or CAIR, has argued the ban violates his religious rights.

 

"It's an evil that needs to be stamped out, and it needs to start here," Awad's attorney, Michael Salem, told the judge.

 

The ban in State Question 755 was approved by 70 percent of Oklahomans on Nov. 2.

 

Awad wants the judge to strike the measure down, but state leaders say the will of the voters should be respected.

 

"We want to make sure here in Oklahoma, we never have a case of marital rape or all this other horrible things people allege under the guides of Sharia Law," Rep. Kevin Calvey, R-Okla., said.

 

The judge is expected to make a ruling by Monday, Nov. 29.