No Shariah Law in OK Courts? Appeals Court Sides with CAIR

Seventy percent of Oklahoma voters approved a referendum (State Question 755) to require their courts to uphold U.S. law without consideration of international law or Shariah law. It took CAIR only two days to sue on the grounds that Muslims' constitutional rights were being violated.

Today, a federal appeals court pat CAIR on the head and sent Oklahoma voters to the corner.

(CNN) – A federal appeals court has blocked an Oklahoma voter-approved measure barring state judges from considering Islamic and international law in their decisions.

The three-judge panel at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier injunction preventing State Question 755 from being certified until the free speech questions are resolved. The decision Tuesday allows a lawsuit brought by Islamic-American groups to move ahead to a bench trial.

“The proposed amendment discriminates among religions,” said the judges. “The Oklahoma amendment specifically names the target of its discrimination. The only religious law mentioned in the amendment is Sharia law.”

A federal judge last summer had issued a temporary restraining order in favor of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which had sued to nullify the law completely.

The amendment would require Oklahoma courts to “rely on federal and state law when deciding cases” and “forbids courts from considering or using” either international law or Islamic religious law, known as Sharia, which the amendment defined as being based on the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed.

In bringing suit, CAIR argued that the amendment violates the establishment and free-exercise clauses of the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom. The group’s local leader, Muneer Awad, has said the amendment passed in November 2010 under a campaign of fear and misinformation about Islam.
(H/t Weasel Zippers)

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, the lawyer of a German Muslim who opened fire on a group of U.S. soldiers at the Frankfort airport, killing two of them and wounding two others, is being defended because he is "well meaning." It is worth noting that Shariah law has made inroads in

to the legal system of Germany, where, for example, Jordanian immigrants are married and divorced in accordance with Jordanian law, and polygamous marriages are recognized.

Arid Uka, 21, who was born in Kosovo but grew up in Frankfurt, “wanted to make his personal contribution to the holy war” but not knowing how to get to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban, opted to act closer to home, the federal prosecutor told the court.

He should serve at least the usual maximum sentence in Germany of 15 years, argued prosecutor Jochen Weingarten, saying the case involving two charges of murder and three of attempted murder was a particularly severe one.

Defence lawyer Michaela Roth did not contest Uka’s guilt but argued extenuating circumstances, describing the difficult background of the “shy, quiet and well meaning” young man who had never previously been aggressive and was “without future prospects.”

The March 2 attack took place at Frankfurt airport, where Uka allegedly opened fire on a group of US soldiers on their way to fight in Afghanistan. Airmen Nicholas Jerome Alden, 25, and Zachary Ryan Cuddeback, 21, were killed. Two more soldiers were wounded. (H/t: @fuzislippers)

A little closer to home on Planet Earth, a judge found that a woman has no legal protection from frequent beatings and rapes by her husband in New Jersey as long as he thinks that beating and raping her is, uh, A-Okay according to Shariah law.

And now a New Jersey judge sees no evidence that a Muslim committed sexual assault of his wife -- not because he didn't do it, but because he was acting on his Islamic beliefs: "This court does not feel that, under the circumstances, that this defendant had a criminal desire to or intent to sexually assault or to sexually contact the plaintiff when he did. The court believes that he was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited."

Rick Santorum on Shariah law and the U.S. Constitution:

“Jihadism is evil and we need to say what it is,” Santorum said last March [3/2011]. “We need to define it and say what it is. And it is evil. Sharia law is incompatible with American jurisprudence and our Constitution.” He added correctly, and in sharp contrast to the prevailing view, that “Sharia law is not just a religious code. It is also a governmental code. It happens to be both religious in nature and origin, but it is a civil code. And it is incompatible with the civil code of the United States.”

That's a view that gets my vote.

Santorum speaking last October:

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