Tag Archives: constitution vs. sharia

The Guarantee Clause: Congress’ Duty to Oppose Theocracy in the United States

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082411_koran-constitution-lgBy Robert M. Petrusak:

[Editor's note: New Gingrich has called for a Federal ban on Sharia law in America.]

Theocracy is inherently oppressive and contrary to America’s core values. It regards God as the sovereign and source of law. It therefore places the coercive power of the state–including interpretation and enforcement of law–in the hands of believers. It excludes non-believers from the body politic and brings them suffering. In total contrast, the Declaration of Independence regards God not as a source of coercive power, but as a guarantor of inalienable rights including liberty and equality. The Declaration states that government derives its sovereign authority or “just powers” not from God, but “from the consent of the governed.” This concept of popular sovereignty is reflected not only in the preamble of the Constitution, but also in the “Guarantee Clause” of Article IV, Section 4 which obligates the federal government to preserve a republican form of government in every state. The Constitution also precludes theocracy through the First Amendment’s ban on laws respecting establishments of religion or prohibiting “free exercise” of religious beliefs.

Political Islam or “Islamism” is theocratic. It may be defined as a belief that Islam should control society and politics, not simply personal religious life. Accordingly to the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis, the ideal Islamic polity recognizes God as sole sovereign and law-giver and assigns believers the task of spreading His revelation until the entire world accepts it. This is to be achieved by extending the authority and membership of the community that follows God’s law, the Shariah, which deals with the acquisition and exercise of power and the duties of ruler and subject. [1] Accordingly, Shariah is not simply a prescription for exercising personal belief through activity such as prayer and diet. It is a system of laws that affects the conduct of both believers and non- believers in Islamic theocracies. More ominously, expansion of the community that regards God as sovereign suggests contraction and disempowerment of the community which does not.

Political Islam therefore challenges the United States Constitution, particularly its embrace of liberty, equality, and popular sovereignty. There is concern that this challenge includes not only violent terrorism but an ideological struggle against non-Islamic courts and legal systems and the principle that the people, not God, are the source of political and legal authority .There is similarly concern that Islamists seek to establish “functionally Islamic governments” in every nation [2] and that toward this end, they will create divisive alternative communities by insinuating Islamic rules of conduct for the temporal world into courts and other institutions. There is even concern that Islamism will limit traditional free speech through application of its restrictions on defamation of religion or blasphemy. [3]

Such concerns have resulted in “anti-shariah legislation” in various states and subsequent court battles over whether such laws violate the constitutional rights of Muslims. However, such concerns raise issues of national importance because efforts to make public institutions Shariah-compliant may violate not only the First Amendment’s provisions on religion or free speech but also the Fourteenth Amendment and Article VI of the Constitution. The former guarantees due process and equal protection; the latter proclaims the supremacy of federal statutes, treaties and constitutional provisions. Moreover, Article IV, Section 4 creates an affirmative federal obligation to guarantee a non-theocratic, “Republican Form of Government” in every state.

The very essence of republican government is the belief that sovereignty rests with the people. [4]. Our Constitution is derived exclusively from the people and alterable only by them through elected representatives. Similarly, elected representatives and elected or duly-appointed judges, not religious leaders, enact and interpret our statutory law. [5] These principles of popular sovereignty support the Article IV guarantee of republican government and are related to the concept of equality. Thus, the guarantee clause would be invoked in the struggle against slavery and in the post-Civil War struggle to include freed slaves in the body politic. [6] In this regard, the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection evolved from our concept of republican government, [7] and a state that denies this fundamental right similarly violates Article IV, Section 4. The introduction into American courts, of laws or legal principles derived from a sovereign God or religious texts cannot be tolerated and the federal government has a clear responsibility to keep theocracy out of state courts and other public institutions.

Read more at Right Side News

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Muslim Group Calls for ‘Litigation Jihad’

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Group from Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International

Group from Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International

The objective of the “litigation jihad” is more than freeing Muslims from jail. It’s a strategy to institute Sharia law in the U.S.

By Ryan Mauro:

The website of the Sankore Institute of Islamic-African Studies International (SIIASI), based in Pittsburgh, P.A., calls on Muslims to engage in “litigation jihad” as a means of moving the U.S. towards Sharia law. The anti-American group had its offices raided by the FBI in 2006.

“The United States has long held Muslim political prisoners within its federal, state and now privatized penal colonies. It is by waging a litigation jihad [sic] in the US penal system that some redress can be made in the international community as well. It is for this reason that Muslim inmate legal actions in the US courts constitute the front line of defense of Islam,” SIIASI says.

The objective of the “litigation jihad” is bigger than freeing Muslims from jail. It continues:

“Every successful Muslim litigation passed in the U.S. courts, is a standardization and recognition of the Islamic shari’a….but more importantly it is a perfecting and refining of the United States constitution.”

The organization states that the jihad should lead an “internationally recognized SOCIAL CONTRACT between the United States and its Muslim national minorities; which is consistent with the shari’a, but does not challenge the sovereignty of the United States.”

Don’t be fooled by the moderate costume disguising the extremist language.

SIIASI’s leader, Imam Muhammad Shareef, regularly refers to the U.S. as “Amerikkka.” He preaches against democracy and in favor of violent jihad. In 2010, Shareef condemned the “the pseudo-religion redefined by the pacifist “imams” who deny the obligation of jihad and who have deluded their followers into the fruitless activity of supporting democratic constitutional government.”

He then quoted Mohammed, the founder of Islam, as saying “There is coming upon man a time when some of the religious scholars will say, ‘This is not a time for jihad.’  For whoever comes upon that time, then know that the most blessed action during that time will be jihad.”

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In the wake of the Boston bombings, we must not focus only on the acts themselves, but the ideology that drove them. The anti-American ideology it espouses is the egg from which jihadists hatch.

Read more at The Clarion Project

Bad Moon Rising: The Sharia Law Bans

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-1968136017Center For Security Policy:

Against the backdrop of the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a heightened interest in the role of Islam in American society and the subsequent clash of civilizations remains.  Specifically, public concern continues to grow across the country about the use of Sharia Law, or Islamic Law, within American courts.  As a result, well over a dozen state legislatures have introduced or passed legislation that prohibits or limits the use of Sharia Law or foreign law in state courts.  These bills have taken two distinct forms: Sharia-specific and facially-neutral bills.  Regardless of classification, these legislative efforts have triggered a number of constitutional concerns, with critics arguing that the bills violate the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment.  Critics argue that the laws have a sectarian purpose and an effect of advancing one religion at the expense of another and thus fail the Supreme Court’s jurisprudential test.  Moreover, these critics argue that the laws burden the practice of religious faith. Indeed, this debate has undeniably opened a Pandora’s Box of constitutional concerns. Meanwhile, the bills’ proponents vigorously reject the accusation that the bills are hostile to Muslims or religious freedoms.  They argue that the bills are designed to proactively safeguard the secular constitutional role of government by prohibiting religious influence, specifically that of Sharia Law.

Senior Cleric for American Muslim Group: Islamic Punishment for Apostasy Is Death

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Center For Security Policy:

Originally published at Translating Jihad

Dr. Hatem al-Haj, a senior committee member for the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA), confirmed in the below fatwa from July 2011 that the Islamic punishment for apostasy is death. A couple of things stand out to me about this fatwa.

First, this fatwa was taken down from AMJA’s website as far back as October 2011, along with other fatwas on the same topic, possibly in response to an article written by my colleague Andrew Bostom exposing the rulings in that same month. (See the fatwa on archive.org, while the link on AMJA’s website is broken.) So either AMJA changed their minds about the penalty for apostasy; or, more likely, they just don’t want non-Muslims seeing what they really think on controversial topics. If that’s the case, then what else are they not telling us?

Second, the question that leads to the fatwa is tellingly not asking what the ruling is on apostasy, but rather how to explain this ruling to others, including non-Muslims. While Dr. al-Haj confirms that the penalty for apostasy from Islam is death, he also recommends that when explaining this to others, you should start with the caveat that this is something which should only be carried out in a Muslim country through the court system.

AMJA likes to hide behind that caveat, but at the same time they encourage Muslims in the United States to use the American legal system in order to establish Islamic law (see here and here). So isn’t it fair to assume that Dr. al-Haj and AMJA would like to eventually make death for apostates the law of the land here in the United States as well?

See my translation of Dr. al-Haj’s fatwa below (see the original Arabic on his website):

The Ruling on the Apostate, and How We (Should) Explain It to Others

23 July 2011

Question: In view of the questions which we have been receiving in the Islamic centers these days, we ask you, sirs, to please explain how to respond to these questions, which are about the ruling on the apostate and his punishment.

Answer: Praise be to Allah, and peace be upon the Apostle of Allah.

I think you should begin by explaining that this is one of those things which is entrusted to the judicial systems in Islamic countries, and not to individuals in these countries or any others. Then make clear that the courts will examine these situations and decide them based on several factors.

But the ruling in the shari’a is death for men (who commit apostasy) according to all four (mainstream) schools (of Islamic jurisprudence). It is the same punishment for women according to most of the schools, but according to the Hanafis it is only imprisonment. This is according to the sayings of the Prophet (PBUH):  “Whoever changed his religion, kill him”; and also, “It is not permissible to shed the blood of a Muslim man who testifies that there is no god but Allah and that I am Allah’s apostle, except for one of the following three:  a murderer, an adulterer, and one who leaves his religion and separates himself from the community.”

This firm ruling is not the only option for the imam, for he can rule otherwise, if there is benefit (in doing so). The evidence for this is the apostasy of some in the time of the Prophet (PBUH), on whom the ruling was not carried out. For (the Prophet) said the following about those who apostatized from the Muslims and joined the Quraysh:  “Whoever departed from us and went unto them, Allah has banished.”

This is not something that was invented by Islam, but rather the ruling on the apostate is also in the Law of Moses (PBUH). The following is from the Book of Deuteronomy:

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying, certain men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known; Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you; Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword. And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the Lord thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.”

It is well-known that those who worshiped the calf were ordered to be killed. In the Book of Exodus 32:28, it mentioned the killing of 3,000 of the Levites for their apostasy:  “And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

In explaining this issue to non-Muslims, you need to be wise and honest. May Allah help you.

Allah Almighty knows best.

Dr. Andrew Bostom: Muslim Leaders Seek Sharia in the US:

 

 

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Dallas CAIR Director: “Muslims Are Above the Law of the Land.”

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Mustafa Carroll

Mustafa Carroll

By Daniel Greenfield:

I for one welcome this new CAIR policy of honesty and openness. Any day now, maybe one of their directors will admit what they truly stand for.

A Council on American-Islamic Relations leader told a crowd at a rally for Islam that members of the faith should not be bound by American law.

“If we are practicing Muslims, we are above the law of the land,” said Mustafa Carroll, executive director of the Dallas-Fort Worth CAIR branch.

The rally in Austin was part of a nationwide effort to hold “Muslim Capitol Day” events. The event included a speech by a representative of Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, who declared that Texas was an awful place and that Islam was the answer.

“Why did Muhammad say that he would not rest until the Koran was the law of the land?”

“Islam does not have Texas in the current condition, the current socio-political condition that Texas is in. What is this condition that Texas is in? Why is Texas on the brink, when you look at Texas in comparison to 50 states, education, percent of population graduating from high school is 46, high school completion rate is 46, the scholastic assessment rate, the SAT score in Texas is 47, the percentage of population with no health insurance in Texas is first, those without health insurance Texas is first. When you look at the state of a child in Texas, the percentage of uninsured children, Texas is first… etc etc

You shouldn’t be filing legislation against Islam, when you look at Texas, Islam is not the problem. Islam is the solution. Allah Akbar.”

Clearly when we look at the literacy rates and health insurance rates in the Muslim world, we cannot help but see that Islam is the answer. That is assuming the question is how can we make Texas more like Somalia or Egypt.

Herman Mustafa Carroll had defended terrorists, perhaps on the same theory that Muslims are superior to the law of the land.

“I think you can only blame Hamas for so long. It takes two to tango. And I think, you know, that what we’ve heard for a number of years is this terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, terrorist, Hamas, Hamas, Hamas, was not just Hamas.”

“Look at the true cause of the terrorism. It’s not somebody is reading a book, reading a Quran, and then go out and say, ‘Well, the Quran told me to blow this up. I’m gonna blow it up.’ The cause, the root cause of terrorism is oppression. The root cause of terrorism is oppression.”

Oddly quite a few terrorists seem to read that book and blow people up. Others read the book and declare that Muslims are above the law of the land. It sounds as if these two phenomena share a common root cause.

 

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Thousands of Salafists stage rally demanding Shariah in Egypt

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Many experts on radical Islam warned the Obama administration that the overthrow of Egypt’s Mubarak would open the door to radical Islamists. And they were right.
 Credits:  MEMRI   

Conservative Action Alerts

by Jim Kouri

An estimated 30,000 Salafists, a radical Islamist sect, gathered at Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, over the weekend demanding a constitution containing provisions with strict adherence to the Prophet Mohammed’s Islamic laws known as Shariah, according to an Israeli intelligence source.

The country’s first civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, took office a mere 100 days ago with the hope of a peaceful and stable Egypt, but is now faced with a conflict over formulating the nation’s founding legal document — a constitution.

Gaining absolute power through last year’s massive demonstration that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak who reigned for decades, the so-called conservative Muslims are attempting the total Islamization of Egypt.

Take Action — Tell Congress to END Foreign Aid to Egypt!

Some of them, mainly the violence-prone Salafists, are calling for the full application of Shariah, known as regulations and rulings of their Holy Prophet Mohammed, in every political and social area of Egyptian living.

Even Muslims themselves are divided on to what extend they should be governed by the rulings of their Prophet, according to the intelligence source.

The Salafists called for a constitution based on the “rulings” of Shariah, which suggest a society abiding by the strict letter of what clerics say is meant in Islamic law.

Other Muslims, including some but not all the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized Islamic organization in Egypt, prefer a constitution based on the “principles” of Shariah, which allows greater leeway and is also favored by some liberals.

What is H.R. 973? It’s a simple, short bill designed to protect Americans from being forced under laws which we did not enact, but were enacted by foreign powers or foreign peoples.

Take Action and Stop Sharia in America: Tell Leaders to Co-Sponsor H.R. 973!

Sixty Percent of US Muslims Reject Freedom of Expression

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By Andrew Bostom:

After violent Muslim reactions to the amateurish “Innocence of Muslims” video, which simply depicted a few of the less salutary aspects of Muhammad’s biography, international and domestic Islamic agendas have openly converged with vehement calls for universal application of Islamic blasphemy law. This demand to abrogate Western freedom of expression was reiterated  in a parade of speeches by Muslim leaders at the UN General Assembly. The US Muslim community echoed such admonitions, for example during a large demonstration in Dearborn, Michigan, and in a press release by the Islamic Circle of North America.

Now the results of polling data collected by Wenzel Strategies during October 22 to 26, 2012, from 600 US Muslims, indicate widespread support among rank and file American votaries of Islam for this fundamental rejection of freedom expression, as guaranteed under the US Constitution. The first amendment states, plainly,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;

When asked, “Do you believe that criticism of Islam or Muhammad should be permitted under the Constitution’s First Amendment?, 58% replied “no,” while only 42% affirmed this most basic manifestation of freedom of speech, i.e., to criticize religious, or any other dogma. Indeed, oblivious to US constitutional law, as opposed to Islam’s Sharia, a largely concordant 45% of respondents agreed “…that those who criticize or parody Islam in the U.S. should face criminal charges,” while 38% did not, and 17% were “unsure”.  Moreover, fully 12% of this Muslim sample even admitted they believed in application of the draconian, Sharia-based punishment for the non-existent crime of “blasphemy” in the US code, answering affirmatively, “…that Americans who criticize or parody Islam should be put to death.”

Also, consistent with such findings 43% of these US Muslims rejected the right of members of other faiths to proselytize to adherents of Islam, disagreeing, “…that U.S. citizens have a right to evangelize Muslims to consider other faiths.” Additional confirmatory data revealed that nearly two-fifths (39%) agreed “…that Shariah law should be considered when adjudicating cases that involve Muslims, ” while nearly one-third (32%) of this American Muslim sample believed “…Shariah law should be the supreme law of the land in the US.”

These alarming data remind us that despite intentionally obfuscating apologetics, Sharia, Islamic law, is not merely holistic, in the general sense of all-encompassing, but totalitarian, regulating everything from the ritual aspects of religion, to personal hygiene, to the governance of a Muslim minority community, Islamic state, bloc of states, or global Islamic order. Clearly, this latter political aspect is the most troubling, being an ancient antecedent of more familiar modern totalitarian systems. Specifically, Sharia’s liberty-crushing and dehumanizing political aspects feature: open-ended jihadism to subjugate the world to a totalitarian Islamic order; rejection of bedrock Western liberties—including freedom of conscience and speech—enforced by imprisonment, beating, or death; discriminatory relegation of non-Muslims to outcast, vulnerable pariahs, and even Muslim women to subservient chattel; and barbaric punishments which violate human dignity, such as amputation for theft, stoning for adultery, and lashing for alcohol consumption.

And the US Muslim data mirror global Islamic trends. Previously, the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (subsequently renamed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC])—the largest voting bloc in the UN, which represents all the major Muslim countries, and the Palestinian Authority—had sponsored and actually navigated to passage a compromise U.N. resolution insisting countries criminalize what it calls “defamation of religion.” Though the language of the OIC “defamation of religion” resolution has been altered at times, the OIC’s goal has remained the same—to impose at the international level a Sharia-compliant conception of freedom of speech and expression that would severely limit anything it arbitrarily deemed critical of, or offensive to, Islam or Muslims. This is readily apparent by reading the OIC’s supervening “alternative” to both the US Bill of Rights and the UN’s own 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, i.e., the 1990 Cairo Declaration, or Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.

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End the Shariah War on Women

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The Center for Security Policy has launched a national public education campaign to ask America’s leaders to end the real ‘war on women’ — the Shariah War On Women. (http://www.theshariahwaronwomen.org) This website features the personal stories of many women whose lives have been affected by sharia. There is a letter to President Obama you can sign urging him to take action, a flyer you can download and print out titled, A Guide to Shariah Law vs. the Constitution as well as rally signs. A very extensive page of resources is provided.

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Shariah law oppresses women’s liberties and human rights, denying them their unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:

* Life: Shariah destroys women’s lives through honor killings, physical abuse, female genital mutilation, and rape.  This occurs not only to Muslim women but also to Christian and secular women through acts of kidnapping, imprisonment and murder.

* Liberty: Shariah crushes women’s liberty through censoring free speech, freedom of religion and freedom of association.

* Pursuit of Happiness: Shariah punishes women’s pursuit of happiness by denying equal rights and freedom in marriage, divorce, child custody, education and employment.

In the video above, a panel discussion, moderated by Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. and featuring several prominent civil liberties and human rights activists, launched the national campaign to end the Shariah War On Women. Panelists included:

Nonie Darwish: Ms. Darwish is an American human rights activist, writer, public speaker as well as founder and Director of Former Muslims United and founder of Arabs For Israel. She is the author of a new book titled The Devil We Don’t Know: The Dark Side of Revolutions in the Middle East.  She is also the author of Now they Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror and Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. She speaks frequently at college campuses, religious institutions and civic association meetings. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy.

Cynthia Farahat: Ms. Farahat is an Egyptian political activist, writer and researcher. In December 2011, Ms. Farahat testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives on the roots of the persecution of the Coptic Christian minority in her native Egypt. In 2008-2009, she was program coordinator and program officer at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty in Cairo, a multi-national free market think tank. She co-founded the Liberal Egyptian Party (2006-2008) and served as a member of its political committee. She is a fellow at the Middle East Forum and the Center for Security Policy and works with the Coptic Solidarity organization.

Clare Lopez: Ms. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism issues. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center for Security Policy, The Rise of the Iran Lobby, where she serves as a Senior Fellow.

Karen Lugo: Karen Lugo is the founder of The Libertas-West Project and in this capacity she responded to a request from French jurists to submit a brief to the Conseil d’Etat on the legal grounds for banning the burqa. Karen is also Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence. In this role, she directs the Center’s litigation in support of constitutional issues. She has submitted amicus briefs to the US Supreme Court on such issues as Healthcare Reform, Arizona’s Border Security, Gay Marriage, The Ten Commandments, Christian Clubs on University Campuses, and Material Support to Terrorists. She is a visiting professor at Chapman Law School and co-teaches the advanced Constitutional Law Clinic. Karen is president of the Orange County Federalist Society lawyer chapter and sits on the Federalist Society International Law Executive Committee. She is also on the board of advisors for Trinity Law School in Orange County, CA and an advisor to UK Baroness Caroline Cox’s HART US. Karen is a regular guest on the Orange County PBS local issues debate program, Inside OC, and she is a frequent contributor to RedCounty.com, FlashReport, and contributing editor to Family Security Matters. She has been interviewed by dozens of radio hosts on the matter of sharia law. Ms. Lugo is an appointee to the California Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights.

Andrew McCarthy: Rule of Law, Equal Protection Threatened Under Obama DOJ

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AIM:

Andy McCarthy twice addressed the AIM “ObamaNation: A Day of Truth” conference. The author and former federal prosecutor discussed the Obama Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder. McCarthy successfully prosecuted the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

“What we’re seeing in this administration,” said McCarthy, “is not only an out-of-whack choice about what their priorities ought to be, but the actual use of political philosophy in deciding who gets prosecuted, and how cases get conducted—and that, for somebody who’s been inside the Justice Department, is an unbelievable thing…If you have a situation where the Justice Department is using politics in the actual enforcement of the law, then you don’t have the rule of law anymore, and you don’t have equal protection under the law anymore.”

In a later talk at the conference, McCarthy discussed his new book, Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy, which we will post in the near future. He also gave an interview at the conference, where he said that what’s happening in the Middle East “is not the spontaneous outbreak of democracy,” but rather the ascendancy of Islamic supremacism. McCarthy also observed that the only countries that practice slavery today are Islamic countries.He said that America and Islam are two different civilizations and that while we’re a freedom culture, in Islam “liberty is subordinated to ‘order’…sharia law.”

He added that what the media largely ignore is the fact that there is serious persecution of religious minorities throughout the Middle East. He indicated that of the worst 50 countries that persecute religious minorities today, 36 of them are Muslim countries.

You can watch his interview here:

 

And you can watch his talk on “Eric Holder’s Department of Injustice” here; or you can watch it here along with the transcript.

The GOP’s ‘No Foreign Law’ Platform

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by: Karen Lugo:

Republican convention delegates voted last week to adopt a platform plank, cautioning against the use of foreign law in U.S. courts. While jurists such as Supreme Court Justice Scalia have said that “foreign legal materials can never be relevant to an interpretation of the meaning of the U.S. Constitution,” and Justice Thomas has written that the Court should not “impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans,” other jurists have searched foreign legal sources to locate “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”

This GOP platform provision, however, represents something beyond concern over the practice of buttressing sketchy legal reasoning with extra-American sources; the GOP statement also objects to Sharia law or any other foreign legal code that threatens to creep into judicial decisions disguised as validated ethnic customs. As suggested, this admonition would apply when claims in a legal dispute are based upon cultural codes with deficient individual and civil right protections compared to American constitutional standards.

The publicized New Jersey spousal abuse case first raised widespread alarm when a trial court judge refused to issue a restraining order against a husband despite the established record of domestic violence and assault (reversed on appeal). The judge ruled that the husband did not demonstrate sufficient legal criminal intent in light of an imam’s testimony that wives are required to comply with husbands’ sexual demands. The man’s wife, known in the opinion as S.D., was 17 on the day of her wedding and did not know the bridegroom before the marriage ceremony in Morocco.

Another case that presented the Sharia terms of a foreign marriage in an American court is that of Joohi Hosain. When Joohi left her marriage (under strict Sharia rules, wives are not generally allowed to sue for divorce), her husband in Pakistan sued for custody of their daughter, Joohi fled to America on a student visa with her daughter, and eventually presented her custody case in U.S. courts after her by-then-ex-husband pursued her to Maryland. Although Joohi explained that making an appearance in a Pakistani court would likely result in accusations of adultery and the possible punishment of whipping or stoning, the Maryland appellate court determined that even so, the mother had the notice and opportunity to be heard and was thus afforded proper due process. The Maryland Court of Special Appeals then deferred to the Pakistani ruling that it was in the best interest of the child for the father to have primary custody.

About half of the cases involving Sharia family customs which have been presented for adjudication by American judges involve marriages solemnized in other countries, but many Islamic domestic marriages are also based on Sharia norms. These domestic unions present unique challenges: they often begin with disregard for the state law regarding the registration of officiants and the licensing of marriages. Even worse is the disregard for due process and informed contract formation when marriages and property distributions are arranged without the bride’s participation.

After a review of both foreign and domestic Islamic marriages, I recently presented a survey to the Federalist Society that considered both published and unpublished family court cases that adjudicated Sharia terms. To date, about 25 U.S. family law cases reflect the U.S. approval of the Sharia-based marital terms in the family court or the court of appeal.

Read more at Radical Islam

Karen Lugo is the Founder of the Libertas-West Project and a co-director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.