13 States Introduce Useless Bills to Ban Sharia Law

I'm laying my money down on "ignorant cowardice".

After the bills become law, the politicians will crow about how they saved 'Merica for 'Mericans.

Grandstanding at best.

This is a preemptive strike. In Europe for example (I am thinking of France and England specifically) there are examples of government sanctioned Islamic courts taking hold. Additionally both countries have huge Arab populations that are not at all shy about protesting, fighting with the police and raising a little hell. It does not help that for decades that these folks were treated as 2nd class citizens however protesting on the scale we saw in France a few years back does not resolve the issue nor does non assimilation into the country and culture you choose to live in. I was just yesterday or the day before that leaders of both countries were discussing the failures or at the very least major short comings of multiculturalism and how it has been applied.

Sorry cant post the link so this is the next best thing.

"From The Sunday Times
September 14, 2008
Revealed: UK's first official sharia courts
Abul Taher
ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.
Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims.

It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network's headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi, whose Muslim Arbitration Tribunal runs the courts, said he had taken advantage of a clause in the Arbitration Act 1996.

Under the act, the sharia courts are classified as arbitration tribunals. The rulings of arbitration tribunals are binding in law, provided that both parties in the dispute agree to give it the power to rule on their case.
Siddiqi said: "We realised that under the Arbitration Act we can make rulings which can be enforced by county and high courts. The act allows disputes to be resolved using alternatives like tribunals. This method is called alternative dispute resolution, which for Muslims is what the sharia courts are."

The disclosure that Muslim courts have legal powers in Britain comes seven months after Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was pilloried for suggesting that the establishment of sharia in the future "seems unavoidable" in Britain.

In July, the head of the judiciary, the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, further stoked controversy when he said that sharia could be used to settle marital and financial disputes.

In fact, Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.

It has also emerged that tribunal courts have settled six cases of domestic violence between married couples, working in tandem with the police investigations.

Siddiqi said he expected the courts to handle a greater number of "smaller" criminal cases in coming years as more Muslim clients approach them. "All we are doing is regulating community affairs in these cases," said Siddiqi, chairman of the governing council of the tribunal.

Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.

Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a "parallel legal system" based on sharia for some British Muslims.

Dominic Grieve, the shadow home secretary, said: "If it is true that these tribunals are passing binding decisions in the areas of family and criminal law, I would like to know which courts are enforcing them because I would consider such action unlawful. British law is absolute and must remain so."
Douglas Murray, the director of the Centre for Social Cohesion, said: "I think it's appalling. I don't think arbitration that is done by sharia should ever be endorsed or enforced by the British state."

There are concerns that women who agree to go to tribunal courts are getting worse deals because Islamic law favours men.
Siddiqi said that in a recent inheritance dispute handled by the court in Nuneaton, the estate of a Midlands man was divided between three daughters and two sons.

The judges on the panel gave the sons twice as much as the daughters, in accordance with sharia. Had the family gone to a normal British court, the daughters would have got equal amounts.

In the six cases of domestic violence, Siddiqi said the judges ordered the husbands to take anger management classes and mentoring from community elders. There was no further punishment.

In each case, the women subsequently withdrew the complaints they had lodged with the police and the police stopped their investigations.
Siddiqi said that in the domestic violence cases, the advantage was that marriages were saved and couples given a second chance.

Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: "The MCB supports these tribunals. If the Jewish courts are allowed to flourish, so must the sharia ones." "

Additional reporting: Helen Brooks

I dislike the idea of having a separate but equal legal system based on religious preference running in tandem with our standard court system no matter the tenets on which our current system was founded (i.e. British common law, practical law and yes even hints of Judean / Christian morality. At the end of the day the United States is a Western Nation.)

tl;dr

lrn2 U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment.

This shouldn't even be up for discussion or debate. You come to America, then you live by the American laws of our land. You don't like them, then get the eff out and leave.

Teabaggers need to stop dropping acid in their tea.

They're not going to be any use to us until they come back from Fantasyland.

Bigotry in this country is alive and well. The bills introduced by these 13 states prove it.

Bigotry in this country is alive and well. The bills introduced by these 13 states prove it.

This was my first response also.

But after a visit to England last year and seeing firsthand how the Muslim clerics are "suggesting" that Muslims take their grievances and cases before "judges" who base their decisions upon religious interpretation....

Allowing and tacitly approving a recognized and separate pseudo legal system for a specific minority amounts to discrimination.

There is a HUGE difference between someone who is Islamic and someone who is an Islamist. The "ist" replacing the "ic" is the difference between terrorism and simply a strong adherence to one's faith. Islam and Muslims reject those who call themselves Islamist, and do not consider Islamisttrue Muslims - having had given up their faith in exchange for blood. Fox News and the like love not to educate the public about the difference between someone who is Islamic and someone who is an Islamist, so I understand the confusion - but that is all it is (confusion). The only thing Christians have to fear about Muslims is the fact that they have already chosen their faith, so they are unlikely to adopt Jesus as their saviour. That may be offencive to Christians, but it is no threat to their lives. On the other hand, we have the same things to fear about Islamist as we do about any terrorist, but again - Islamist are not Muslims or Islamic (Islamic and Muslim being the same).

Besides, if we were truly afraid of Islam and sharia law, then we wouldn't go around the world kicking the hornets nest like we do. We are doing a great job spreading more extreme Islam (Vs moderate Islam). Just look at Iraq. Iraq was secular before we destroyed it and killed it's people. Now it is non-secular and in fact Sharia law has since been Incorporated into their constitution as a result of the vacuum in leadership left behind in the wake of our terrorism. Islam in fact accepts all other religions. If anything (like most religions), Muslims are critical of people who have not accepted any god, but a god - ANY GOD - is potentially a good god in the eyes of Islam. That is more than you can say for what is taught is American Christian churches about people who worship other Gods or follow other faiths. It seems to me if anything, that the religious extremest here in America of the Christian faith are afraid that Islam will be successful in installing an oppressive religious world order based in Islam before they are able to establish an oppressive religious world order based in Christianity - instead of working with the Muslim world to build a bridge of tolerance and moderation.

http://onenewsnow.com/Persecution/Default.aspx?id=1271242

Meanwhile, the bombings of Christian homes and churches, along with the fact that tens of thousands of Christians have fled Iraq, have made international headlines. Though the country's constitution provides for religious freedom, the government has been so poorly organized that protection has been scarce.

"They are not being silent in this with regard to the government; they are speaking out and asking the question, 'Where is the promised protection? Where is the freedom of religion that was promised' and...ironically existed for them during the regime of Saddam Hussein," Nelson adds.

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/features/article_1394840.php/Iraq_once_secular_now_dominated_by_religious_parties

Cairo ­ A few days before the launch of the war on Iraq in March, 2003, pro-war policymakers in the United States were saying Iraqis would make better allies than Saudis because they were secular and overwhelmingly Shiite.

Iraqis 'don't bring the sensitivity of having the holy cities of Islam being on their territory,' said the then US Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz.

http://houzanmahmoud.blogspot.com/2010/04/do-iraqs-women-miss-saddam.html

Women could walk freely throughout the streets of the capital, wearing whatever they pleased. A high percentage of women had full-time jobs, women in government were given a year of maternity leave and public day care centers were set up. The country had one of the best education systems in the Arab world and women were well represented in most faculties.

While one would hardly go so far as to describe those times as 'the good ole'days', for many women Iraq under Saddam Hussein had its perks.

Today the situation is quite different. While the fall of Saddam Hussein has led to many overall improvements in personal freedoms and civil rights, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and subsequent courtship of socially conservative Islamic political groups has created quite a different picture for women.

Women no longer have many of the civil rights they were afforded under Saddam Hussein's regime. Sharia law has been written into Iraq's constitution, women have been barred from certain aspects of public life in many parts of the country, women's freedom of movement has been severely curtailed, sex trafficking, prostitution, abductions and assassinations of women have all risen and women in government no longer get a year of maternity leave - that has been cut to six months.

"In general women were living much better off under Saddam," YanarMohammed, a women's rights advocate with the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq told The Media Line. "The Iraq that I grew up in was a very modern Iraq and we had basic human rights."

"It was more fashionable at the time to give more rights to women and even Saddam followed the more progressive tendency in the region," she said. "So the Personal Status Law of the time, passed [in 1959] even before Saddam, established a minimum age for marriage, made it very difficult for a man to take a second wife and one almost never saw clerics ruling on civil matters."

"But then the U.S. occupation created a political vacuum and allowed what they call the 'culturalgroups' to have their way in Iraq," Mohammed continued. "These religious groups were able to gain access to the constitution and allow people to turn to Sharia instead of civil law. So there is no longer any strong civil law to protect us and there are now big parts of Iraq which are being ruled under Sharia, in which women have very little rights."

"The Americans just let the rule of the jungle go ahead - whoever is the strongest will rule - and the Islamists are the strongest," she said. "So now we are living in a new Islamist Iraq, with Islamic courts all over Baghdad and women totally vulnerable to religious law: a man can marry four wives, a girl that is twelve years old, it's almost impossible for women to get divorced. None of this was the case in Saddam's time."

Dr Haitham Numan, Director of the Baghdad-based Asharq Research Center, argued that the situation for women has significantly worsened since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

"We cannot say that education for women or the general situation for women is better today,"Dr Numan told The Media Line. "On the contrary it is worse."

"We can see more general freedoms in Iraq since the fall of the Saddam regime, but at the same time we now have Islamic law, which forbids women's participation in many aspects of life," Dr Numan said. "Ten years ago Islamic leaders had no political clout and this is a major change."

ISLAMIC law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases.

That's the largest thing ignoramuses don't read in that whole article. It's no different than third party arbitration for civil cases that occurs in the US. These bills are nothing more than ignorant fear mongering against a threat that doesn't exist. If those bills pass then all third party arbitration of civil cases should be thrown out of the system as well. It's a shame there are so many idiots in 'Merica that they're too stupid to understand simple things.

Zen this is the problem:
"The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence." Domestic violence is a criminal act and as such falls under criminal jurisdiction. The last thing I want is my daughter smacked around by her hubby and then according to an interpretation of Sharia have it be considered to be within the husbands purview as to how he treats his wife and then to add insult to injury have this religious legal system run in tandem and sanctioned by with our secular legal and criminal systems. There should only be one recognized law. To do anything else only invites disaster. I would not move to Iran and expect to have the same constitutional protections that I enjoy in the United States. I do not see why folks expect the reverse to be different.

Domestic violence is a criminal act and as such falls under criminal jurisdiction.

You just said it yourself. That article that was quoted is about Sharia law being used as an arbitration tool for civil matters. And being that it is an arbitration tool both parties have to agree use it before it can be legally binding.

The last thing I want is my daughter smacked around by her hubby and then according to an interpretation of Sharia have it be considered to be within the husbands purview as to how he treats his wife and then to add insult to injury have this religious legal system run in tandem and sanctioned by with our secular legal and criminal systems.

That is nothing more than fear mongering. Explain to me how an arbitration system for civil matters can be used to trump criminal law?

There should only be one recognized law. To do anything else only invites disaster.

Then all forms of third party arbitration should be thrown out.