Muslim Professor warns, anti-shari’a legislation proposed in multiple states poses a “significant threat to national security”

With an eye toward the 2012 elections, legislators in six states have been debating laws explicitly prohibiting courts from considering or using Sharia law, with 14 more looking at wider bans on “foreign law.” They’re taking a clear cue from Oklahoma’s wildly popular Shari’a ban, which voters approved as a state constitutional amendment last year by more than 70 percent.

 

Such laws are discriminatory and pointless. Civil liberties groups are fighting them in court and calling on state legislators to abandon such bills. But there is an additional reason everyone, including would-be proponents of the laws and the federal government, should oppose them: they pose a significant threat to national security.

To begin with, the bans’ justifications are thin. Despite the worries voiced by candidates in the recent Republican candidates’ debate in New Hampshire, no state, county or municipality is about to realign its laws with religious doctrine, Islamic or otherwise. (That is a lie: NEW STUDY FINDS SHARIAH LAW INVOLVED IN COURT CASES IN 23 STATES)  Nor does 

any state

 

or federal court today in Oklahoma, or anywhere else, need to enforce a foreign rule repugnant to public policy. Under the legal system’s well-established “choice of law” doctrines, the courts are already unlikely to help out someone who claims their religion allows, say, the subordination or mistreatment of women.

Instead, the bans would deprive Muslims of equal access to the law. (CRAP) A butcher would no longer be able to enforce his contract for halal meat — contracts that, like deals for other faith-sanctioned foods, are regularly enforced around the country. Nor could a Muslim banker seek damages for violations of a financial instrument certified as “Sharia compliant” since it pays no interest.(sharia-islamic-law-now-being-practiced-in-florida-yes-florida)

 

Moreover, these bans increase bias among the public by endorsing the idea that Muslims are second-class citizens.(The bias comes from muslims acting as if they are above the law, with their constant demands for special accommodations for their excessive religious needs which inconvenience other Americans)  They encourage and accelerate both the acceptability of negative views of Muslims and the expression of those negative views by the public and government agencies like the police. (Nah uh, Muslim anti-social behavior is what fosters negative views by the public)

Such indignities arise amid a pattern of growing animus toward American Muslims. Reports of employment discrimination against Muslims to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which declined after a post-9/11 peak, have recently surged.  (Maybe that’s because Muslim Brotherhood groups like CAIR keep suing and threatening businesses if they don’t make special accommodations for Muslim sensitivities) Gallup, Pew and ABC polls confirm a new spike in anti-Muslim views.

CAIR poster telling Muslims NOT to cooperate with FBI

Most troubling, tallies of hate crimes collected by nongovernmental organizations show the same trend.

In this context, bans like the one in Oklahoma will serve to chill cooperation by the Muslim-American community with counterterrorism efforts. (They could hardly be chillier considering the  FBI gets little or no help from the muslim
community) This makes sense: in such an environment, it would be fair for Muslims to pause before, say, passing on a lead to the police, worrying about whether the police would then look at them with suspicion as well. (How would they know if they’ve never tried?)

But the likelihood of such a chill is also supported by four large, random-sample surveys that I conducted with two colleagues, Tom Tyler and Stephen Schulhofer. Our data, collected from Muslims and non-Muslims in New York and London, suggest that the experience and perception of private discrimination have a significant negative effect on cooperation. (No, it’s the going against Islamic teachings by ratting out a fellow muslim, even if he is a terrorist, is what negatively affects cooperation)

This not only affects everyday public safety, but also the interaction necessary to gather information about self-radicalization and domestic efforts to recruit terrorists. After all, it’s simply impossible for the government to gather all that information. For that it must rely on the public, both as a filter and as an aid in interpreting it. If the government lacks strong ties to the Muslim-American community, that kind of filter falls apart. (That filter has never been there)

To prevent the erosion of such (non-existent) support, the Justice Department should better publicize its support for a pending
challenge to the Oklahoma amendment. It should also announce that it will challenge similar measures as violations of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion. Doing so would not only protect the rights of Muslim-Americans, but also send a signal that they can rely on the federal government’s support. (Readers of BNI Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, etc., already know the Obama thugs are using tax dollars to fight every state that wants to impose anti-shari’a legislation)

To be sure, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has taken steps against anti-Muslim bias, for example by supporting a California schoolteacher’s suit challenging her dismissal for taking time off to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. But these steps are inadequate compared to the scope of public and private discrimination facing Muslim-Americans. (Perhaps the anti-muslim attitudes are the result of the overreaching out to muslims by the Regime)

 The federal government needs to do more to defend equal access to the law regardless of faith. To do so is not simply to uphold our core values — it is also to work to improve our nation’s security. (I’ll tell you how to improve MY nation’s security, get rid of the muslims)

Aziz Huq is an assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago. (Why am I not surprised?)