Sunday, September 4, 2011

NYT's Op-Ed: Crusade against Sharia undermines American democracy


The cheese has finally completely slipped off the cracker over at the New York Times. America is a nation of one laws. The only exception is treaty obligations to various Indian tribes. Any other set of laws, good or bad, must be rejected. This is especially true for a legal system that proscribes chopping off body parts and stoning women to death for minor moral infractions.
(NYT) — MORE than a dozen American states are considering outlawing aspects of Shariah law. Some of these efforts would curtail Muslims from settling disputes over dietary laws and marriage through religious arbitration, while others would go even further in stigmatizing Islamic life: a bill recently passed by the Tennessee General Assembly equates Shariah with a set of rules that promote “the destruction of the national existence of the United States.”

Supporters of these bills contend that such measures are needed to protect the country against homegrown terrorism and safeguard its Judeo-Christian values. The Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has said that “Shariah is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.”

This is exactly wrong. The crusade against Shariah undermines American democracy, ignores our country’s successful history of religious tolerance and assimilation, and creates a dangerous divide between America and its fastest-growing religious minority.
Did the NYT's inadvertently admit Muslims are dangerous? What is the nature of this "dangerous divide" they refer to in the op-ed? If we are all governed by one set of laws, how are we divided? I doubt non-Muslim Americans will be rioting if Sharia isn't implemented.

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