South Carolina’s Anti-Foreign Law Bill: Constitutional and Necessary

New study determines Islamic sharia law is utilized in courtrooms across the country – in violation of constitutional rights.

The South Carolina state legislature is considering a bill that would bar foreign laws – such as Islamic sharia law – from conflicting with U.S. and state laws. Opponents of the legislation claimed that such a bill is unnecessary as sharia law would never be used in violation of American laws and argued that such a law would be unconstitutional. They are wrong on both counts.

In a previous article at The US Report, we exposed attempts to label the bill unconstitutional as obfuscation. After all, how can a bill that clearly states that it will protect “constitutionally guaranteed” rights be unconstitutional?

Senate Bill 444 reads (emphasis mine):

A court, arbitrator, administrative agency, or other adjudicative, mediation, or enforcement authority may not enforce a foreign law if it would violate a constitutionally guaranteed right of this State or of the United States.

It does not preclude Muslims from all sharia activities – such as praying – as the bill’s opponents want us to believe, it simply prevents sharia from overriding constitutionally-guaranteed rights when the legal systems conflict.

Now, a new study released by the Center for Security Policy, a non-partisan national security organization, finds that sharia law was in fact utilized in numerous states, including one relevant case in South Carolina. Research was limited to published trial and appellate court documents on the Google Scholar website, so there are undoubtedly many more cases involving sharia than those detailed in the study.

The bill’s opponents have repeatedly stated that sharia will never be applied when it conflicts with U.S. or state laws, but despite the limited availability of data, this study found over two dozen cases where judges decided cases based on sharia law – even when Islamic law conflicted with our laws.

In one case, a New Jersey judge refused to grant a restraining order after an Islamic man sexually and physically abused his wife, stating that this was permissible under Islam. The judge determined that his religious belief negated any criminal behavior.

A judge from Michigan enforced an Islamic summary divorce obtained by the husband, known as talaq, which violates the woman’s right to equal protection. The wife had no prior knowledge of the divorce, was not allowed a hearing, and did not have an attorney. Sharia law states that the wife is only entitled to property that was in her name, contrary to Michigan policy.

Many cases involve child custody in which judges will defer to foreign sharia courts, which side against women and non-Muslims, without considering the best interests of the child.

At the forefront of the anti-sharia bill’s opposition is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported on Wednesday that the IRS removed CAIR and the CAIR Foundation from the list of tax-exempt organizations as the groups did not file their annual finance reports.

As of this writing, CAIR’s website still claims that donations are tax-deductible, despite losing their IRS status two weeks ago.

It also bears mentioning that CAIR remains an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2010 Holy Land Foundation terror financing trial, where Muslim organizations conspired to send millions of U.S. dollars to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Members of CAIR’s leadership had been under investigation until the Justice Department scuttled their pending terror financing prosecutions.

Now that we can see that not only is this bill constitutional, but also that sharia is in fact applied in courtrooms across the country, nothing should stand in the way of the bill’s passage.