rssTennessee bill echoes Texas and Oklahoma anti-Sharia bills
Wednesday, March 02, 2011 at 5:37 pm
- 3 Comments
A recent bill filed in both houses of the Tennessee legislature mirrors similar bills that have been debated in Texas and Oklahoma in recent months. Tennessee’s SB 1028 (PDF), as it is known in the Senate, would criminalize the following of Sharia, law based on the Koran. The bill begins by declaring that:
“The threat from terrorism continues to plague the United States generally and Tennessee in particular.”
The bill would make contributing to any group or institution designated a Sharia organization a felony and would give the Tennessee attorney general the power to designate as a Sharia organization any group that he or she believes adheres to Sharia law and has the capability and intent to engage in acts of terrorism. Of course, while the bill ultimately claims to merely be aimed at terrorists, many Muslims and civil rights groups have objected to the fact that the bill associates Sharia law with jihad and acts of terrorism and that it would give to an individual the right to declare a given group to be a terrorist organization.
Rep. Judd Matheny (R-Tullahoma), who introduced the bill in the House of Representatives, admitted in an interview with the Nashville Tennesseean that he has not actually reviewed the bill extensively and merely introduced it as it was given to him by Tennessee Eagle Forum, a conservative advocacy group with ties to ACT! for America, a national group that calls itself “a collective voice for the democratic values of Western Civilization, and against the threat of radical Islam.”
ACT! for America also had connections to the Texas and Oklahoma bills. The group made 250,000 automated phone calls to Oklahoma voters to try and spread the word about that state’s bill, and it was one of the principal advocates of Rep. Leo Berman’s bill in Texas. Both bills were meant to amend the state constitutions; the Texas bill remains in committee, and the Oklahoma bill was actually passed as a ballot measure, but its implementation was put on hold by a federal judge.
3 Comments
Comment posted March 3, 2011 @ 2:34 pm
First, shari’a as practiced to any extent by most American muslims does not involve any desire to make it American law to be imposed on non-muslims. (The definition of “jihad” relied on by the drafters of this bill is equally loaded and inaccurate.) So, this bill is factually inaccurate in its premises.
Second, to the extent that any American muslims may be using or might in the future use legal and non-violent means to promote the adoption of shari’a as American secular law, that is their right– just as it has been the right of right-wing American Christians to try to use legal and non-violent means to impose Christian doctrine on American secular law.
Denying American muslims the right to use legal and non-violent means to advocate for adoption of shari’a as American law is a clear violation of the First Amendment rights of Free Speech and Free Exercise of Religion, rendering this bill patently unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Third, using illegal and violent means to promote the adoption of shari’a is already illegal, as it would be to use illegal or violent means to promote Christianity, or Buddhism, or vegetarianism, or Wal-Mart, or Glee, or anything else. To the extent that this bill outlaws the use of illegal or violent means to promote the adoption of shari’a law, it is redundant and useless.
Personally, I would oppose even a peaceful and non-violent attempt to impose shari’a as American secular law, just as I have always opposed efforts to impose Christian religious doctrine as American secular law. However, “I will defend to the death” the right of Christians and Muslims to use legal and non-violent means to convince others that their respective religious beliefs should be adopted as American secular law.
Comment posted March 5, 2011 @ 2:17 pm
When Muslims came to this country it was to adopt and join our way of life, supposedly. now it looks like they(muslims) are here to infiltrate us. Most of the points you used are legitimit ONLY under our law…Muslims here in this country now want sharia law allowed? then why did they move here,,,WE ALREADY HAVE THE RULE OF LAW IN PLACE . Sharia law is TOTALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL as there can be NO seperation of church and state..Muslims are sasking for special rights in PUBLIC schools(the right to pray at school) they are asking that Honor killings be looked at as religion rather than murder, and on and on…Sharia law is similar to the OLD TESTAMENT laws with the exception that we have the new testament to live by now while the MUSLIMS are still living by the koran that hasn’t changed for 3,000 years or more
Comment posted March 5, 2011 @ 3:02 pm
You’re correct, it would be unconstitutional to adopt certain aspects of
shari’a as American secular law. It would also be unconstitutional to adopt
certain aspects of Christian doctrine as American secular law. Both are
forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Honor killing is illegal in America because murder is illegal regardless of
religious justifications, just as it would be illegal for Jews or Christians
to emulate Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter to YHWH (Judges 11:29-40)
even though the Tanakh/Old Testament portrays that as an act of great piety
by Jephthah. That’s why courts have held that Christian Scientists, despite
their sincerely-held religious beliefs, can be held criminally liable for
failing to provide adequate medical treatment for their children.
Muslims can seek school-organized prayer, just as many Christians have, but
that violates the Establishment Clause– with or without this bill.
However, the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment also gives all
Americans an equal right to practice their religion– Muslims as well as
Christians– insofar as they don’t violate constitutional boundaries.
That’s why this bill is useless and wrong-headed. Anything it actually has
the power to forbid is already forbidden under the Constitution, and the
rest of what it’s trying to forbid it is prohibited from forbidding.
Its only real point seems to be to promote the viewpoint that
Muslim-Americans aren’t “real” Americans (for example, your own *”now it
looks like muslims are here to infiltrate us”*).
(By the way, the New Testament “hasn’t changed” for much longer than the
Qur’an hasn’t. The New Testament was compiled in its present form around
400 CE, while the Qur’an wasn’t written until about two-and-a-half centuries
after that, around 650 CE.)
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