By Eileen F. Toplansky
Respect, a “newsletter about law and diversity,” is a publication of the New Jersey State Bar Foundation. It is geared for middle- and high school students. The recent Spring 2012, Vol. 11, No. 3 article1 entitled “Fear Propels Religious Attacks” by Cheryl Baisden is of particular interest, because while it purports to have a fair-minded stance, the fact that CAIR, or the Council of American Islamic Relations, is cited as a credible source sheds serious doubt about the objectivity of the article. In fact, CAIR receives “financial support from foreign powers who have provided direct support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and Hamas. CAIR has raised funds for terrorists under the guise of helping 9/11 victims. CAIR board members have called for the overthrow of the United States and imposition of Islamic law. CAIR has discouraged Muslim-Americans from cooperating with law enforcement and at least 15 high-level CAIR staff members have been under federal investigation for ties to Islamic terror.”
In short, CAIR “is an entity masquerading as a ‘civil rights’ organization[.]“ It has numerous ties to extremist Islamic organizations, and “on June 4, 2007, the New York Sun reported that CAIR had been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support both Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).” Moreover, CAIR has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That Ms. Baisden never explains CAIR’s criminal and terrorist connections is inexcusable. Thus, the young reader of this newsletter is left ignorant of CAIR’s “dishonest and misleading attacks against an initiative designed to preserve … freedoms.”
In writing about the imposition of sharia law into the American justice system, Ms. Baisden claims that “[i]n the past few years, … several states have passed or are considering legislation that would restrict the way followers of one specific religion practice their faith.” This is a disingenuous statement. In fact, American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) emphasizes that “[n]o U.S. citizen or resident should be denied the liberties, rights and privileges guaranteed in [the United States] constitutional republic. American Laws for American Courts is needed especially to protect women and children, identified by international human rights organizations as the primary victims of discriminatory foreign laws.”
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…the closest that Cheryl Baisden comes to explaining sharia law is to write that “[f]or followers of just about any religion there are certain rules that apply to their faith, from kosher laws among Jewish people to the disapproval of divorce among Catholics. In the same way, sharia is the law that governs certain aspects of everyday life for Muslims.” What is most disturbing about Baisden’s piece is that the whole point of this newsletter is to educate. Thus, this missed opportunity to do genuine research permits the falsehoods, disinformation, and shameless obfuscation of Islamic law, all under the rubric of muddied multiculturalism.
John Swails, who was the director of the Center for Israel and Middle East Studies at Oral Roberts University, stated that supporters of sharia law will “tell you it provides religious freedom, but that’s true only if you’re a Muslim.”
One in favor of sharia-imposed justice is Saad Mohammed, director of Islamic information for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City. He opposed State Question 755 and stated that “[s]haria law coincides with about 80% of the United States Constitution.”
One needs to seriously consider the 20% that does not comply with the United States Constitution and its protection of freedoms! In fact, this incredible and chilling YouTube video from Andrew Bostom succinctly elucidates what sharia law is all about and the status of the infidel under this Islamic law.
Yet in February 2012, CAIR produced a 38-page legislative lobbying kit to help Muslims lobby against “American Laws for American Courts” legislation. It is available at this site.
This report is ably refuted by Islam Watch’s “CAIR’s Sharia Fog Machine,” which demonstrates how “CAIR’s legislative strategy is to portray themselves as merely correcting the misunderstanding caused by widespread ‘Islamophobic’ fear that sharia will ultimately prevail over American law. This is a red herring to trivialize the concern over sharia law. The question is not whether all American rulings will someday be based on sharia law, but whether any rulings would be based on it.”
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Most egregious is Baisden’s reporting about the Tennessee SB 1028 bill. She writes that there “is a bill in Tennessee that would make any adherence to sharia law, which includes religious practices like prayers and rituals such as feet washing, a felony as an act of treason, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.” In fact, this is what it says in the bill.
(4) This part neither targets, nor incidentally prohibits or inhibits, the peaceful practice of any religion, and in particular, the practice of Islam by its adherents.The fifteen years figure that Baisden refers to relates to the following:
Any person who knowingly provides material support or resources to a designated sharia organization, or attempts or conspires to do so, shall commit an offence. A violation of subdivision (a)(1)(A) is a Class B felony, punishable by fine, imprisonment of not less than fifteen (15) years or both; provided, that if the death of any person results from a violation of subdivision (a)(1)(A), then the offense is a Class A felony, punishable by imprisonment for life or imprisonment for life without possibility of parole. To violate this subsection (a), a person must have knowledge that the organization: (i) is a designated sharia organization, or (ii) has engaged or engages in (a) one of more acts of terrorism … (b) terrorist activity in this state … or (c) terrorism in this state or from within this state as defined in … of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act[.]This is a far cry from being imprisoned for foot-washing, as the bill specifically “declares that it does not target the peaceful practice of any religion.”
Moreover, this concise FAQ list would have helped to elucidate the issue. Yet none of this background information is to be found in the newsletter geared for American students. More galling is that a publication from a State Bar Foundation does not allude to the Islamist lawfare tactic currently being used to hamstring and undermine American law. In the preface to Brooke Goldstein’s book entitled Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech, Geert Wilders writes “[Goldstein's is a] profoundly important book about one of the most worrisome phenomena of our times: Islamic lawfare. This book helps to understand the threat it poses to our most precious freedom, which is also a moral duty — the right to speak the truth.”
Sadly, this misinformation and these omissions and distortions are certainly not limited to this particular newsletter. In the 2011 study entitled “Education or Indoctrination? The Treatment of Islam in 6th through 12th Grade American Textbooks,” published by ACT! For America Education, Inc., 38 different texts were examined regarding how Islam is being presented in American public schools.
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If instead of sharia law, one were to insert Nazism, then Islamic totalitarian political, social, and economic postures become clear. Yet superficial writing, authorial naïveté, yellow journalism, and outright obfuscation and lies are permitting this insidious system to creep into American society. Thus, “Americans need to continue the long-term project of informing themselves about sharia. … Likewise all politicians must learn to speak more precisely about Islamic law, carefully distinguishing between practices that are protected by the U.S. Constitution and those that are not, thus minimizing the confusion that Islamists exploit.”
Comment: Using their logic, we should be allowed to take our legal system, including our court protocols into any Islamic country and only have to follow this system's mandate-right? What is good for the goose is good for the gander! Now if you believe this could ever happen then you are ill informed or choose to remain ignorant of the facts.
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