LOL at panty-wetting Teatards quaking in fear.
The southern state of Tennessee is the latest example of an irrational fear of Islam, which threatens American values and Muslim civil liberties.
Bill Ketron Jr, a Republican State Senator in Tennessee who was first elected in 2002, introduced Senate bill 1028.
The fiery language of the bill is not unfamiliar in the American public square: In the lead-up to the 2010 elections we saw Newt Gingrich and other candidates for election, Islamophobic commentators and websites warn of the threat.
Senate bill 1028 goes further than other states have gone.
It provides the Tennessee state attorney general with the authority to designate "sharia organisations", defined as "two or more persons conspiring to support, or acting in concert in support of, sharia or in furtherance of the imposition of sharia within any state or territory of the United States."
According to the bill, anyone who provides material support or resources to a designated organization could be charged with a felony and face up to 15 years of jail.
The bill simplistically equates sharia with terrorism without any proof and declares that it is "treasonous" and incompatible with the US constitution.
It incorrectly identifies sharia as a political doctrine that "requires all its adherents to actively support the establishment of a political society based upon sharia as foundational or supreme law and the replacement of any political entity not governed by sharia with a sharia political order."
The bill goes on to state: "Sharia requires all its adherents to actively and passively support the replacement of American constitutional republic, including the representative government of this state with a political system based upon sharia."
The very start of the language of the bill is profoundly disturbing. Sharia is falsely equated with Islamic law.
Sharia refers to God's will, laws, principles and values, found in the Qur'an and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad.
Islamic law is the product of early jurists who interpreted and developed during it in the early Islamic centuries.
The hysteria continues with unsubstantiated accusations: "The knowing adherence to sharia and to foreign sharia authorities is prima facie evidence of an act in support of the overthrow of the United States government and the government of this state through the abrogation, destruction, or violation of the United States and Tennessee Constitutions by the likely use of imminent criminal violence and terrorism with the aim of imposing sharia on the people of this state."
The bill states that its goal is not to outlaw freedom of religion or the practice of Islam. However, though breathtakingly devoid of evidence of any call to impose sharia in Tennessee or anywhere else in the US, it uncritically condemns sharia and asserts that it represents a major threat to Tennessee, brush-stroking the vast majority of mainstream Muslims and Islam in America.
For its understanding of the nature and role of Islamic law, it relies on the rhetoric of terrorists such as Osama Bin Laden and the harsh application and punishments meted out in some parts of the world.
The bill is a cheap and transparent attempt by Ketron to pander to the misplaced fears of some citizens.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/mar/25/islam-religion
