Judge rules ban on Sharia Law unacceptable.

Except he's an idiot for one blatantly obvious reason...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The First Amendment makes Sharia Law a non-issue. Why? The Feds and by extension from being tied to the 10th and 14th Amendments the states are forbidden from prohibiting a practice of religion that does not circumvent any other constitutional right.

Conversely, Sharia Law has no legal weight because of this. It's little more than verbal grandstanding and all legal punishments under Sharia are null and void in this country owing to the First Amendment.

It's right to be concerned about Sharia Law threatening our way of life, it is wrong however to think we can either ban it or let it carry legal weight.

Teal Deer: A judge and a complaining Muslim rights group and the authors of the original law are all complete morons for failing to understand simple US Constitutional intepretation.

edited 8th Nov '10 7:28:28 PM by MajorTom

I...have no objection to your post. Everyone involved in this case is an idiot.

...how exactly do you go about criminalizing a legal system?

As much as I can't believe I'm saying this, I kind of agree with Major Tom, in that any legal system based in religion really shouldn't be used as the basis of decisions. Of course, part of this is the First Amendment, and part of this is that a judge's duty is to rule on American law, not any other law, making this feel rather like a solution in search of a problem.
That said, the ban seems kind of vague. A judge should not consider Sharia law or international law? What exactly does that mean? Sure, it makes sense in common sense terms, but just wait until a ruling is challenged in court: this is the sort of thing that sounds vague enough to be unenforceable.

edited 8th Nov '10 8:20:16 PM by Linhasxoc

As if it was ever going to be an issue in Oklahoma anyway.

Pulling a random guess out of my ass, I'm going to say that somebody tried to claim that Sharia Law had some sort of enforceable nature that would give it any kind of power. But I'm assuming that various drugs were involved.

No. Nobody ever did that. What did happen was that a judge in New Jersey ruled that a husband was not guilty of rape on the grounds that he didn't know that you could rape your wife. (And this husband happened to be Middle-Eastern) It was of course reversed on appeal just like the other times that some judicial dinosaur has said, "You can't rape your own wife" (and didn't mean it wasn't allowed).

Also, no judge has ruled the "ban on Sharia Law" was unacceptable as yet.

edited 9th Nov '10 12:35:49 AM by Nobodymuch

Yeah, it seems that there were some private Islamic courts for the resolution of civil disputes, not actual courts of law that operated outside existing U.S. criminal and civil law, and the article linked declined to mention the distinction in order to rile up the reader.

As a staunch secularist I have no problem with outright banning religiously affiliated private claims courts, as long as all of them are banned equally. But if they're allowed (I don't know if they're permitted in the U.S. or not, actually - what's the status on privately operated small claims courts in the U.S.?) then they should be allowed to all religious groups that are willing to submit to the greater secular laws of the land. That includes American Muslims.

I think all courts are actually run by the government. If any part is private, it would be a group of lawyers and you could probably draw up a contract.

^^

Even taking this into consideration, the decisions made by any courts of this kind would have no legal binding whatsoever.

But yeah, all in all, that appears to be a giant non-issue, whose outcome will be largely inconsequent. Also, I don't think that Sharia law will ever be part of the law canon of any western nation  ^*

There are already a number of religious courts all over USA through which a particular religious community can adjudicate matters of family law for themselves. They are called Halacha (Jewish law) courts and they allow observant Jews to conduct business and personal transactions in accordance with the principles of the Torah as long as Halacha does not violate the civil law. Why shouldn't Muslims in the US have the same opportunity as America's Jews when it comes to issues of marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

I copy pasted the above but this is my comment. The law is specific only for Syaria, this is discriminatory, if I'm not mistaken that is the basis of the lawsuit.

edited 9th Nov '10 1:56:11 AM by Blurring

Then there's your problem. Either ban all religiously aligned private adjudication courts or let everyone including Muslims have them.

I can't see a civil court that has to respect all the rules of law being an issue, but thats off topic.

If people want to impose upon themselves extra rules above and beyond the law, I don't see an issue. That's what contracts are based on, for example, and non-disclosure agreements and so forth. It's trying to ignore laws that gets you in trouble, like laws against murdering or mutilating or unlawfully imprisoning someone.

Teal Deer: A judge and a complaining Muslim rights group and the authors of the original law are all complete morons for failing to understand simple US Constitutional intepretation.

1. It doesn't matter whether the authors of the original law understand US Constitutional interpretation or not since the law isn't intended to do anything but exploit local anti-Muslim sentiment for votes, serving as a symbolic gesture.

2. It doesn't matter whether the Muslim group filing suit understands US Constitutional interpretation or not. They are doubtless aware that it is a symbolic gesture. They just don't like the symbolism.

3. As for the judge, since she hasn't ruled the "ban on Sharia law" is unacceptable or not, much less why, we can't say whether she understands constitutional interpretation or not. Someone has petitioned the courts for redress of what they perceive to be an injustice. And no representative of the other side has showed up to make any argument. Therefore, since it is important not just that justice is done but that justice is seen to be done, she has issued a symbolic stay of a symbolic law.

edited 9th Nov '10 7:17:53 AM by Nobodymuch

No. Nobody ever did that. What did happen was that a judge in New Jersey ruled that a husband was not guilty of rape on the grounds that he didn't know that you could rape your wife. (And this husband happened to be Middle-Eastern) It was of course reversed on appeal just like the other times that some judicial dinosaur has said, "You can't rape your own wife" (and didn't mean it wasn't allowed).

Y'know, as a child, I used to think you couldn't rape your wife.

This is simply a semantic difference between "rape as damaging and spoiling a good" and "rape as hurting another person". Originally, rape meant the first: a man rping his own wife isn't damaging any product, she's already his to consume.

...I recall hearing about spousal rape before. I'm sure it happens. Probably doens't get reported very often, but that doens't make it less wrong than say, raping someone who is not their spouse.

But anyway, as far as I understood it, the ban was merely symbolic; and there's an injunction on it from becoming a law for now, until arguments for and against are weighed.

But as the Constitution says now law for or against, it'll probably be struck down.

Oh, just to specify, I didn't derive that belief from my environment or anything. I derived it from Western Fairy tales and Greek mythology such as The Illiad. Some books should get ratings for Values Dissonance. They'll mess up a kid. Unless it is part of the learning experience.

Yeah, sounds fair. We read Kaffir Boy in middle school, and the teacher warned us about a certain chapter, and we didn't read it in class. I literally went:

"I'm 12 years old what is this I don't even"

Hey, teacher-person? Thanks for the [MULTIPLE EXPLETIVES REDACTED] sucker bait...!

F**king Hell. When will the fools stop prostrating themselves to Islam and third-world culture?

That was my first thought.

edited 9th Nov '10 2:22:02 PM by Shichibukai

I don't really think it is a big deal. Where I live, family law can be routed through catholic or jewish arbitration. If you don't like the religious courts, civil family court always overrules it because the other stuff isn't law, just arbitration styled after religious law.

The usual objection is that people in conservative religious communities would feel pressure to accept religious arbitration.

People in religious communities already feel pressured to do a half dozen other things like your religion, what you can say, your political views, who you can associate with, whether you should own a gun, whether you should own a slave, how you should treat members of the military,and paying a fix percentage of your salary in tithes.

edited 9th Nov '10 4:26:58 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

When will the fools stop prostrating themselves to Islam and third-world culture?

What.

Quoted for truth. A religion is an ethic of maximums. What the law provides is the Lowest Common Denominator. As long as it doesn't contradict the law, people should be free to relinquish their freedom and sacrifice it in the altar of a religious community who will pat them on the back for it (among other, more tangible benefits).

The problem with that is that it tends to divide society in clustergroups. Which never turned out well.

Well, look at that, I agree with Major Tom. I wonder where I can get my flying pig Jesus promised me on the phone last night.