Originally published by Communities @ Washington Times
SAN DIEGO, February 18, 2012?Once again, some appellate judges have made a ruling which overthrows the will of voting citizens. Such magistrates should be honored during this year’s Academy Awards show. After all, it can’t be easy for them to maintain a straight face while pretending to uphold democracy.
With most Americans looking westward at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent ruling about Prop 8 in California, a January ruling from the 10th Circuit concerning an Oklahoma case has slipped off the radar of many news commentary programs:
“The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling released Tuesday, affirmed an order by a district court judge in 2010 that prevented the voter-approved state constitutional amendment from taking effect. The ruling also allows a Muslim community leader in Oklahoma City to continue his legal challenge of the law’s constitutionality.
The measure, known as State Question 755, was approved with 70% of the vote in 2010. The amendment would bar courts from considering the legal precepts of other nations or cultures. ‘Specifically, the courts shall not consider international law or sharia law,’ the law reads.”
“The appellate court opinion pointed out that proponents of the law admitted to not knowing of a single instance in which an Oklahoma court applied sharia law or the legal precepts of other countries.”
“‘This serves as a reminder that these anti-sharia laws are unconstitutional and that if politicians use fear-mongering and bigotry, the courts won’t allow it to last for long,’ said Muneer Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Oklahoma. Awad sued to block the law, contending that it infringed on his 1st Amendment rights” (Stephen Ceasar, Los Angeles Times, January, 10, 2012).
Is it possible that people in Oklahoma are exhibiting genuine fear rather than manipulative fear mongering? Could they be swimming up steam to avoid a problem before it flows through? Perhaps they heard about that Muslim gentleman in New Jersey who initially avoided a restraining order in the name of Sharia Law even though his ex-wife accused him of rape!
“A New Jersey family court judge’s decision not to grant a restraining order to a woman who was sexually abused by her Moroccan husband and forced repeatedly to have sex with him is sounding the alarm for advocates of laws designed to ban Shariah in America.”
“Judge Joseph Charles, in denying the restraining order to the woman after her divorce, ruled that her ex-husband felt he had behaved according to his Muslim beliefs — and that he did not have ‘criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault’ his wife” (Maxim Lott, Fox News, August 5, 2010).
True, an appellate court overturned this New Jersey case, but one would think that such a cozy relationship between judicial activism and certain segments of Islam would send chills up our spines even at a lower court level. Meanwhile, Oklahoma experiences the ruling of a higher court.
Of course, Politically Correct America already knows by heart the standard retort to such expressed concern: Many Muslims are peaceful and therefore it is unfair to characterize an entire religion with “a few bad apples.” True enough. But most concerned citizens are not denying the existence of peaceful Muslims. Instead, they are affirming the existence of a document fast on its way to antiquity, our U.S. Constitution.
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