State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, have introduced a bill that would make it a felony to adhere to Sharia law in the state of Tennessee — punishable by 15 years in jail. The facially unconstitutional law would make Tennessee the leading state in the Union in the denial of freedom of religion.
The law declares Sharia to be a danger to homeland security and includes any adherence to Sharia (including feet washing and prayers) as prohibited acts.
Matheny is the House speaker pro tempore and actually says that he is defending the U.S. Constitution by denying religious practices to citizens.
The law was reportedly drafted by David Yerushalmi, an Ariz.-based attorney who runs the Society of Americans for National Existence, a nonprofit that says following Shariah is treasonous. The article below reports that Yerushalmi has “close ties to Frank Gaffney, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.”
Yerushalmi has been denounced as a “facsict” by writers like Richard Silverstein, who quotes Yerushalmi on such notable comments as this:
One must admit readily that the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one…Indeed, Jews in the main have turned their backs on the belief in G-d and His commandments as a book of laws for a particular and chosen people…What interest does America have in a strong Israel? If your answer is democracy in a liberal or western sense, know you have sided with the Palestinians of Hamas.
The bill is little more than an anti-Islamic screed. It includes such “findings” as:
The knowing adherence to sharia and to foreign sharia authorities is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the United States government and the government of this state through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions by the likely use of imminent criminal violence and terrorism with the aim of imposing sharia on the people of this state.
It misstates critical aspects of the Islamic faith:
Sharia in particular includes a war doctrine known as jihad, which is an organic, intrinsic and central feature of the laws and traditions of sharia due to a consensus among sharia authorities throughout the ages
Jihad is in fact a general term that does not mean violent overthrow but a wide range of religious based charity and service, according to experts on Islam.
The bill is SB 1028 in the Senate and HB 1353 in the House. It treats mere adherence to Sharia as tantamount to terrorism, and includes a provision giving the state attorney general the power to designate a sharia-following organization in the same way that the U.S. Attorney General declares an organization to be a terrorist organization:
(1) The attorney general and reporter is authorized to designate an organization as a sharia organization in accordance with this subsection (a) if the attorney general and reporter finds that:
(A) The organization knowingly adheres to sharia;
(B) The organization engages in, or retains the capability and intent to engage in, an act of terrorism as defined in § 39-13-803; and
(C) The act of terrorism of the organization threatens the security or public safety of this state’s residents.
Here is the law: SB1028
There are few sites more critical of the abuses of Sharia law than this blog. If you search Sharia on this site, you will bring up an endless array of shocking abuses. However, the way to fight such abuse is not to become equally authoritarian and hateful. Most of these abuses are concentrated in radical Islamic governments. Sharia law is far broader in its application and interpretation.
It is highly ironic to see politicians advocating a bill criminalizing religious practices in the name of protecting a Constitution created to protect religious freedoms. One would have to go pretty far from our shores to find how to implement such laws. For example, Saudi Arabia outlaws places of worship of other religions and, of course, the Taliban regularly punishes those who practice other religions.
In the end, these legislators will simply expend taxpayer money to defend a law that has been unconstitutional since the establishment of this Republic.
Source: Tennessean
Jonathan Turley
I state, having sufficiently studied The Koran, to be able to so state, that the following sentence is of falsehood:
“Sharia law demands unequal treatment of women, to name one egregious area, including their disfigurement, murder, forced marriage.”
I is frightfully clear to me that some “Muslim Clerics” have made interpretations of that sort. However, one needs to understand the structure of Islam and its innermost purpose in order to properly understand how and why such Muslim Clerics are mistaken, albeit sincere.
In Islam, as in the Congregational Christian Churches and as in the United Church of Christ, no person has any “ecclesiastical” authority over any other person, and, in Islam, no cleric has any authority over anyone else EXCEPT through misinterpreting The Koran. This is well covered in The Koran in my George Sale translation copy, on pages 549-551, LXIX “THE CHAPTER OF THE INFALLIBLE, Revealed at Mecca. Those who believe in Clerical Authority may wisely read and study “The Chapter on the Infallible” until they recognize and fully accept their fallibility. Ignorantia non est sapiens. (Ignorance is not wisdom.)
Islam began as a religion as though it would unite warring tribes. Uniting warring tribes may take quite a while. For as long as the warring tribes have not become united, Islam may appear to those who have not bothered to really understand the basis principles of Islam to be a warring religion, whereas it is about coming to understand the avoidance of warring tribes by guiding such tribes through whatever is needed to learn and understand how to actually understand and live in the ways of war prevention. A religion is not what a religion does while garnering the understanding needed for the basis religious principles to be validated in actual practice.
“Peace Be Upon You” is the dichotomous alternative, when it has become fully realized, to the Adversarial Principle. Competent Islamic Scholars, if what I here state be in significant error, please so inform me. I find no peace within adversity and no adversity within peace.
Perhaps the way I was raised within the Congregational Christian tradition may be simply illustrated with a few excerpts from William E. Barton, D.D., LL.D., “The Law of Congregational Usage” Advance Publishing Co, Chicago, 1916:
From page 10, “Congregationalism. It embodies three fundamental prinicples: (1) that it is the right and duty of believers in Jesus Christ in every community to organize for Christian work and worship, and that such an organization is a Christian church; (2) t hat each such church is by right independent of all external ecclesiastical control, and in any such church all members possess equal ecclesiastical authority a and that such churches owe a duty of Christian fellowship and co-operation to one another.”
From page 11, “Priesthood as a usurpation of the right to thrust a system between God and the soul has no rightful place in Christianity.”
My dad, as a Congregational Christian minister, chose to extend equal ecclesiastical authority to all within a church congregation, including the newly born infants, such as I was, on the first Sunday after I had been discharged from St. James Hospital, in Butte, Montana, soon after I was born into this earthly world.
It is necessary for beliefs contrary to the basis principle of Islam be found within the practice of Islam, else, how is the work of Islam to be accomplished if no person in need of the foundational truth of Islam ever accepts the Islamic faith?
It is one thing to have read the Bible, another to have learned to understand it. It is one thing to be familiar with the words of The Koran, another to understand those words within new and unfamiliar situations and circumstances.
My religious and scientific upbringing both accord no place in my life for any doctrine or dogma, no matter who pretends to have sufficient authority to indoctrinate me as to matters of dogma and/or authority.
Because believing that the world is imperfect is a religious dogma or doctrine as I experience it, my life accords to no person the power to “make me” believe that the world is not perfect.
Misunderstanding, regardless of sincerity, is never not misunderstanding.
When someone who has not adequately understood Islam tells falsehoods of Islam, and it is falsehood to believe other than that the real meaning of Islam is other than, “Peace Be Upon You,” what someone of inadequate understanding can tell is only of inadequate understanding.
Islam appeared onto the Human Scene only after Christianity had been co-opted and disastrously contaminated by being Romanized, and, through authoritarian Roman tyranny, viciously divided against itself.
No world as though divided against itself can very long continue to exist.
You can always count on politicians to work hard to solve non-existent problems.
If anyone needs me I’ll have my face firmly implanted in my palms.
Ginger,
Are you really saying that banning the private practice of ALL Sharia law has a legitimate secular purpose?
Let’s be clear, the violent and oppressive aspects of the law are most likely already illegal.
Wow! The American Taliban in Tennessee is upset that a Taliban religious belief might be utilized in Tennessee? Holy Crap! They better call the Representative in Georgia who wants to set up the Uterus police. He will know what to do! Are there any sane and intelligent people in Tennessee???
RE: Gingerbaker, February 24, 2011 at 11:38 am
“@Gingerbaker
…I had to read your comment several times to make sure I wasn’t missing the point. Are you really saying that Sharia law subverts individual freedoms?”
You bet. Sharia law demands unequal treatment of women, to name one egregious area, including their disfigurement, murder, forced marriage. Do you think honor killing should be Constitutionally protected? How about whether a devout Muslim fireman can refuse to take Muslim women out of a burning building because they are not wearing a burka, as happened in Saudi Arabia? How about whether a Muslim woman has the right to refuse marital sex?
There is Sharia Law, which is of the form of denotation, and there are interpretations in the form of connotations, which some folks may confuse with Sharia Law by mistake. It is a classical classification error to equivalence an object with its denotation and its denotation with whatever connotations become associated with either or both the object and its denotation.
I have on this desk a blue cup which I sometimes use for water, sometimes for coffee, sometimes for cocoa, sometimes for tea, and sometimes merely to define the space wherein it is. Used for water, it is not a water cup, it is a cup. Used for coffee, it is not a coffee cup, it is a cup. Used for cocoa, it is not a cocoa cup, it is a cup. Used for tea, it is not a teacup, it is a cup. Used to define space, it is not a defining-space cup, it is a cup. Something is not what it does. Something is not the conotatation someone assigns to the someone’s denotation of the “object in question.”
A cigar is always a cigar. Connotations of a cigar are not the cigar, who can actually light words and smoke them in exactly the same physical manner as someone could, if not caring about lung cancer risk, light and smoke a cigar?
Methinks there is an awareness progression from the object in question to the denotation of the object in question to connotation of the denotation of the object in question.
Regarding the connotation of the denotation as the actual object itself may be of truly terrible error of violation of classification boundaries.
Our Constitution is based on certain Enlightenment principles, Sharia is decidedly not. You see no area for conflict?
As I read The Koran, I find all of the principles of the Enlightenment within The Koran, easily found though sufficiently diligent study by me and by others with whom I have communicated. The message of The Koran, “Peace Be Upon You,” is the true basis of the Enlightenment.
Many people who self-identify as of Islam are making horrific errors of interpretation, just as are many people who self-identify as Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Confucian, Taoist, Shinto, Jewish, Native American Church, Catholic, Protestant, Zoroastrian or any of a thousand or more religious traditions which may readily be named with a sufficient research effort.
The interpretation of Sharia Law cannot be Sharia Law, because something simply and absolutely cannot be its interpretation.
“By that reasoning we should make Christianity illegal too. I said “god damn” yesterday, which is a clear violation of the First Commandment.
”
That doesn’t make sense whatsoever.
In a previous comment, I offered how it may make perfectly irrationally unintelligible sense to me. Among all [possible forms of sense, some will be irrational, others unintelligible, and some will be both irrational and unintelligible.
My point is that is going to get a real workout. I am not defending the bill by the Tennessee Republicans, I am saying that Sharia – if it ever gets to it (and demographically, it will get to it eventually) – is going to be unprecedented in the magnitude and breadth of its conflict between religious and human rights.
You bet. Sharia law demands unequal treatment of women, to name one egregious area, including their disfigurement, murder, forced marriage. Do you think honor killing should be Constitutionally protected? How about whether a devout Muslim fireman can refuse to take Muslim women out of a burning building because they are not wearing a burka, as happened in Saudi Arabia? How about whether a Muslim woman has the right to refuse marital sex?
Our Constitution is based on certain Enlightenment principles, Sharia is decidedly not. You see no area for conflict?
”
That doesn’t make sense whatsoever.
Of course they should…… because Congress Shall NOT make any laws……. I understand…..but I don’t understand….. Look out doggy…… the Commerce Clause can come and trump your play ground….. Then….we can just see the rights eroding away as the state implodes….. I’ll finish this up with someboys (Somebody) got quite a load….. and I better go before I explode…apt here too….
RE: Nonplussed 2.0, February 24, 2011 at 10:29 am
@Gingerbaker
…I had to read your comment several times to make sure I wasn’t missing the point. Are you really saying that Sharia law subverts individual freedoms?
By that reasoning we should make Christianity illegal too. I said “god damn” yesterday, which is a clear violation of the First Commandment.
#####################################
I made another mistake. I make every mistake I can possibly make, and I find it would likely help me were I able to make more mistakes.
I make mistakes because I am always doing something I never exactly, in every detail, did before…
And…
In the presence of something experienced as sufficiently wrong, it is taking the Name of The Lord in Vain to Not Cry Out, “GOD, DAMN! GOD, DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, DAM! DAM! DAM!” regarding everything experienced as sufficiently wrong, the sooner that such wrong may given the means to abandon humanity.
Animus ipsum loquitur! Vita ipsa loquitur!
RE: Nonplussed 2.0, February 24, 2011 at 10:29 am
@Gingerbaker
…I had to read your comment several times to make sure I wasn’t missing the point. Are you really saying that Sharia law subverts individual freedoms?
By that reasoning we should make Christianity illegal too. I said “god damn” yesterday, which is a clear violation of the First Commandment.
################################
I find it useful to distinguish Sharia Law in the form of connotation from Sharia Law in the form of denotation.
If that is not perfectly obvious to anyone, methinks improved understanding of communication, and language as a communication tool, may be of formidable merit.
The denotation of Sharia Law, as is true of the denotation of everything, is never problematic.
The symbolic representation of the denotation of Sharia Law in words or in actions may be disastrously problematic.
I have in hand a fairly recent printing by Fredrick Warne, London, of the George Sale translation of The Koran, with an Introduction by Sir Edward Denison Ross. My other copies of the George Sale translation were beginning to encounter the natural process of much used, older books, and I obtained this copy to continue my efforts in making increasingly valid biophysics-based understanding of The Koran.
I wonder how many people who fault Islam have studied The Koran in any language enough to ferret out its underlying intelligible meaning?
Adamant ignorance may be a poor substitute for truthful integrity.
Animus ipsum loquitur. Vita ipsa loquitur.
(The Way of Life speaks. The Fact of Life speaks.)
Buddha,
That’s because most people don’t run through enough flow charts in their lives. Usually the thing you check for first is the most important.
Gyges,
It’s not until most people get a good sniff of excessive entanglement that they realize it’s in the citrus family.
I posted an article regarding this nonsense yesterday on the Arizona official state gun thread. The part I find contradictory, yet funny as hell because these two bozos don’t see the blatant contradiction:
“The bill exempts any peaceful practice of Islam. But it also claims that any adherence to Shariah law — which includes religious practices like feet-washing and prayers — is treasonous.”
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/23/tennessee_islam_law_felony_bill
Not only can you not fix stupid, but that scaredy-cat portion of the conservative brain is forging a hostile take-over of any little bit of sense Ketron and Matheny MAY have had.
Ginger,
Allow me to introduce you to the Lemon test.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_v._Kurtzman
Seeing as how many tenets of Sharia law are also embraced by some fundamentalist Christian groups in Tennessee who want their beliefs codified, the fallout from this is going to be amusing, to say the least. Well, amusing to rational beings anyway.
“Pandering to bigots is
apparentlyimmanently effective.”Not a correct, Nal, so much as a suggestion.
Pure political pandering. Of course, one has to blame the electorate to whom the pandering is directed. Pandering to bigots is apparently effective.
@Gingerbaker
…I had to read your comment several times to make sure I wasn’t missing the point. Are you really saying that Sharia law subverts individual freedoms?
By that reasoning we should make Christianity illegal too. I said “god damn” yesterday, which is a clear violation of the First Commandment.
As I understand Sharia Law to mean, and only to mean, “Peace Be Upon You,” I am soon going to be felon if ever I again go to or through Tennessee?
I have lived the whole of my life according to Sharia Law, as I am able to understand and live in accord with Sharia Law. I so live in accord with the dictates of my conscience, in accord with Section 19 of Article I of the Wisconsin Constitution.
Constitution? What Constitution? Constitutional Rights? What Constitution and what Rights?
“Is There No Place On Earth For Me?”
–by Susan Sheehan, with a Forward by Robert Coles, Ph.D., Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York, copyright 1982, Vintage Books Edition published April, 1983. (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction.)
Life itself speaks.
Our Constitution also protects individual freedoms. When religious practices subvert those individual freedoms, which deserve Constitutional protection?