No, Newt, There Won’t Be Shariah In The US, Trust Me

By: Monday September 20, 2010 6:19 am

There is a meme out there in the radical Republican Party about Shariah (Islamic law based on the Qur’an and other works) being imposed here in the United States. It has so much acceptance that a supposed 2012 Republican Presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, could call for a Federal law banning it, at the Value Voters summit in Washington and get a standing ovation. To say that this kind of crazy gets right up my nose is an understatement on the level of saying the razing of Carthage was a minor property dispute.

It is hard to know where to start in on the stupid on this issue, but let’s begin on a point near and dear to my heart, the Constitution. The First Amendment makes it clear when it says:

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

That means all religions, not just one. There is also the Article VI, Clause 2, the Supremacy Clause which makes the Constitution, Federal Laws and Treaties the supreme law of the land. No other law can supersede these laws, whether they be religious laws or State laws.

This whole “their going to try to impose Shariah!!” hysteria is just that, fear mongering to whip up the base of the increasingly insane Republican Party. What is particularly galling about all of this is the level of unselfconscious hypocrisy that goes along with these fears of religious law being established in the United States.

He Tried to Blow Up the Plane with a Condom Bomb & Why Getting Hysterical About Airport Security is Wrong

By: Wednesday January 6, 2010 5:30 pm

Sheer hysteria or the illusion of hysteria dominates the conversation in the media right now. How much are we willing to give for the delusion of airport safety?

The Sky is Falling – Resistance is Futile

By: Tuesday May 26, 2009 3:01 pm

Bobo as Chicken Little

Media Advisory: A Bird, a Monkey, and a Pig Walk into a Bar…

By: Wednesday May 6, 2009 6:05 pm

Paging all you media types; and you know who you are

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Ghost Dancing

By: Saturday April 25, 2009 10:25 am

No event can equal its report.

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