Editor's note: Dean Obeidallah is an award-winning Arab-American comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" special, ABC's "The View," CNN's "What the Week" and HLN's "The Joy Behar Show." He is the executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival.
By Dean Obeidallah, Special to CNN
April 18, 2011 11:00 a.m. EDT
Courtesy Of "CNN"
 |
To be fair, I'm not sure if all Republicans love Sharia law, but they certainly do love talking about it.
Republicans Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum don't agree on everything, but they all concur that we must stop Sharia law from being imposed upon America.
And Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, winner of a Tea Party convention straw poll in February, went a step further when he recently declared that he would not even nominate an American-Muslim to his Cabinet because in his words, Muslims "are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country." (Although to be honest, Charlie Sheen has a better chance of "winning" the 2012 presidential election than Cain.)
Add to this mix Republican state legislators in more than a dozen states who have introduced legislation to ban state court judges from considering Sharia law. And in Tennessee, Republican state Sen. Bill Ketron has upped the ante by proposing a law that would make it a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison for any person who knowingly supports Sharia law.
Well, then maybe it's the American-Muslim state legislators who serve in places such as New Hampshire, Missouri, Michigan and North Carolina -- including the longest-serving Muslim state-elected official, Larry Shaw, who has been a member of the North Carolina General Assembly for 16 years. Maybe they're the ones hankering for Sharia law? But alas, I came up empty.
Oh, I know, how about Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the highest concentration of Muslims in America? If there is any place in America that wants Sharia law, it has to be there. However, Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly -- clearly a very Muslim name -- said in an interview last year: "There's no Sharia law in Dearborn, Michigan. ... It isn't even talked about in Dearborn."
Avlon: Colbert, Kyl and spread of "misinformation"
I keep striking out. Then it occurred to me, perhaps Sharia law is part of the agenda of the biggest American-Muslim organizations in the country: the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.
So I reached out to the Islamic Society of North America's national director, Sayyid Syeed, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations' national outreach coordinator, Aseel Elborno, and asked them point-blank: Do you want to impose Sharia law across the United States? Their answer: a resounding "no." They explained they simply want to be able to practice their faith just like all other proud Americans. Nothing more.
This is now getting confusing. My Muslim friends and family members don't want Sharia law, neither do the Muslim elected officials nor the biggest American-Muslim groups -- not even the people of Dearborn. Then who is furthering this dastardly plan?!
The best evidence these Republicans cite in support of their claim is a case from New Jersey where a trial judge sided with a Muslim man who had raised Sharia law as a defense to the charge of marital rape. The state that brought us "Jersey Shore" actually brought us something worse with this court decision. However, thankfully, the New Jersey appellate court correctly overturned the trial judge's decision, alleviating any concern about Sharia law trumping American law.
If religious law -- regardless if it is Muslim, Jewish or Christian -- does not comport with the principles of U.S. law, our courts will not follow it. It's that simple. This is a well-established principle of our American legal system -- one that I would have hoped the Republican politicians would have been known. Of course, maybe I'm assuming they know more than they do, as I was reminded by Bachman's recent gaffe in saying the American Revolution began in New Hampshire instead of Massachusetts.
It appears that certain Republicans have created this "Sharia monster" for their own purposes. They scare us with their monster, and then they want to take credit for saving us from their own creation.
To those Republicans who continue to stoke the flames of fear and bigotry to attract media attention and benefit their own political careers, I hope you will heed the words of your fellow Republican Ronald Reagan, who famously stated: "No one group in this country is better than another. No one race or religion or sex or color is better than another. ... It's time we erased the last vestiges of intolerance, bigotry and unkindness from our hearts. Decency demands this and so does our history."
The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah
*****
Dean Obeidallah is an award-winning Arab-American comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" special, ABC's "The View," CNN's "What the Week" and HLN's "The Joy Behar Show." He is the executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival.
Republicans Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum don't agree on everything, but they all concur that we must stop Sharia law from being imposed upon America.
And Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, winner of a Tea Party convention straw poll in February, went a step further when he recently declared that he would not even nominate an American-Muslim to his Cabinet because in his words, Muslims "are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country." (Although to be honest, Charlie Sheen has a better chance of "winning" the 2012 presidential election than Cain.)
Add to this mix Republican state legislators in more than a dozen states who have introduced legislation to ban state court judges from considering Sharia law. And in Tennessee, Republican state Sen. Bill Ketron has upped the ante by proposing a law that would make it a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison for any person who knowingly supports Sharia law.
Well, then maybe it's the American-Muslim state legislators who serve in places such as New Hampshire, Missouri, Michigan and North Carolina -- including the longest-serving Muslim state-elected official, Larry Shaw, who has been a member of the North Carolina General Assembly for 16 years. Maybe they're the ones hankering for Sharia law? But alas, I came up empty.
Oh, I know, how about Dearborn, Michigan, the city with the highest concentration of Muslims in America? If there is any place in America that wants Sharia law, it has to be there. However, Dearborn Mayor Jack O'Reilly -- clearly a very Muslim name -- said in an interview last year: "There's no Sharia law in Dearborn, Michigan. ... It isn't even talked about in Dearborn."
Avlon: Colbert, Kyl and spread of "misinformation"
I keep striking out. Then it occurred to me, perhaps Sharia law is part of the agenda of the biggest American-Muslim organizations in the country: the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.
So I reached out to the Islamic Society of North America's national director, Sayyid Syeed, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations' national outreach coordinator, Aseel Elborno, and asked them point-blank: Do you want to impose Sharia law across the United States? Their answer: a resounding "no." They explained they simply want to be able to practice their faith just like all other proud Americans. Nothing more.
This is now getting confusing. My Muslim friends and family members don't want Sharia law, neither do the Muslim elected officials nor the biggest American-Muslim groups -- not even the people of Dearborn. Then who is furthering this dastardly plan?!
The best evidence these Republicans cite in support of their claim is a case from New Jersey where a trial judge sided with a Muslim man who had raised Sharia law as a defense to the charge of marital rape. The state that brought us "Jersey Shore" actually brought us something worse with this court decision. However, thankfully, the New Jersey appellate court correctly overturned the trial judge's decision, alleviating any concern about Sharia law trumping American law.
If religious law -- regardless if it is Muslim, Jewish or Christian -- does not comport with the principles of U.S. law, our courts will not follow it. It's that simple. This is a well-established principle of our American legal system -- one that I would have hoped the Republican politicians would have been known. Of course, maybe I'm assuming they know more than they do, as I was reminded by Bachman's recent gaffe in saying the American Revolution began in New Hampshire instead of Massachusetts.
It appears that certain Republicans have created this "Sharia monster" for their own purposes. They scare us with their monster, and then they want to take credit for saving us from their own creation.
To those Republicans who continue to stoke the flames of fear and bigotry to attract media attention and benefit their own political careers, I hope you will heed the words of your fellow Republican Ronald Reagan, who famously stated: "No one group in this country is better than another. No one race or religion or sex or color is better than another. ... It's time we erased the last vestiges of intolerance, bigotry and unkindness from our hearts. Decency demands this and so does our history."
The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Dean Obeidallah
*****
Dean Obeidallah is an award-winning Arab-American comedian who has appeared on Comedy Central's "Axis of Evil" special, ABC's "The View," CNN's "What the Week" and HLN's "The Joy Behar Show." He is the executive producer of the annual New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and the Amman Stand Up Comedy Festival.
No comments:
Post a Comment