February 14-2014
The effort to pass state laws banning Sharia law from the US courts appears to be on the wane with only nine state legislatures considering such bills this year versus 15 states last year and 23 in 2012.
Gavel-to-Gavel, a website that follows bills in state legislatures, reported that the nine states are: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia.
In many of those states the bills are holdovers from last year rather than new bills.
In only one of those states—Mississippi—has the bill been approved in committee and been sent to the House floor for a vote.
Gavel-to-Gavel said, “2014 appears to be the year when bills to ban court use of international/foreign law, or specifically Sharia law, start to wane.”
The anti-Sharia movement started in 2008 with inaccurate news reports alleging that judges had used Sharia law in deciding cases and asserting that Dearborn, Michigan, had adopted Sharia law as its municipal code. Dearborn has a large Arab population—but most of them are Lebanese Christians.
The movement got a big push in 2010 when the Oklahoma legislature sent a proposed constitutional amendment forbidding the use of Sharia law in state courts to the people in a referendum. In November of that year, 70 percent of the voters approved the amendment.
Within months, however, a federal judge ruled that the Oklahoma amendment violated the US Constitution by singling about one faith for restrictive action.
Since then, most of the legislation introduced in state legislatures bars the use of foreign laws in state courts. The bills have been more and more narrowly drawn as faiths and businesses object. Businesses say they often sign contracts that require enforcement of foreign laws. Faiths say that adoption, divorce and child custody cases based abroad are drawn up under foreign laws.
Of the bills currently before state legislatures, Gavel-to-Gavel says only HB 4494 in the South Carolina House specifically bans Sharia law.
Despite the absence of any mention of Sharia law in most bills these days, many proponents of the legislation have openly said such bills are aimed at the alleged “threat” from Sharia. They often speak of a Muslim plot to impose Sharia law, without explaining how it could be imposed in a country where fewer than 1 percent of the citizens are Muslim.
Proponents say Sharia law is being cited in US court cases. That is true. It is commonly cited in inheritance or child custody cases where a will was drawn up under Sharia law or a custody decision was awarded under Sharia law. But in such cases, the US court first determines whether the Sharia law provision in use contradicts American law. When it does, it is not legally enforceable in a US court.
Anti-foreign laws have now been enacted in seven states: Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Tennessee. This November, the voters in Alabama will vote on such an amendment to the state Constitution.