Oklahoma’s Anti-Islam Ballot Measure Challenged As Un-constitutional

by Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Countercurrents.org

10 November, 2010

The Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations today (November 4) filed a lawsuit at the US District Court of Oklahoma saying that an anti-Islam (Sharia ban) state ballot measure passed in November 2 election violates the U.S. Constitution.

The ballot measure 755 prohibits Okalhoma courts from considering Islamic Sharia law when deciding cases. In the current anti-Islam and anti-Muslim environment prevailing in the nation over the Park51 project, known at Ground Zero Mosque in New York, nearly 70 percent of voters in the state cast ballots approving the measure.

When the voting results are certified November 9, the measure would amend the Oklahoma state constitution to forbid judges from considering Islamic principles (Shariah) or international law when making a ruling.

The lawsuit was filed by CAIR-Oklahoma Executive Director Muneer Awad as an individual seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to prevent final certification of the amendment by the Oklahoma State Board of Elections.

The CAIR lawsuit argued that the ballot measure will infringe on the constitutional rights of ordinary Oklahomans in their daily lives -- including the right to wear religious head scarves, choose Islamic marriage contracts or to be buried according to one's religious beliefs.

Read the rest here.

Comment: I read about this bit of legislation in Oklahoma a few days ago and was just dumbstruck.  So 70 percent of voters approved of a ban on Sharia law.  There sure are a lot of dumb asses in Oklahoma.

There is not one state in the US where Sharia law exists.  There is not one case in the torrid history of the US where a court recognized Sharia law. 

These shades are reminiscent of the time after Pearl Harbor when the US froze the assets of Japanese-Americans rendering them internal enemies.  Not much has changed. 

Same disease. Same paranoia.  Same outcomes.

1995 Oklahoma City Bombing

If this law stands then the voters of Oklahoma should get together and declare all skinny white men who look like the bombing maniac, Timothy McVeigh, to be suspect undesirables.  And they should not stop there but also outlaw the Roman Catholic church in which McVeigh was raised.

But that would be racist, of course, since we know that white folk can't be terrorists and Christianity, even the Catholic kind, is a superior and historically peaceful religion.

Right ... ???

Onward!

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