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Federal court blocks Oklahoma ban on Shariah law

teamosil said:
Can you give an example of what you mean with contracts? It seems to me that you can give up rights in contracts. For example, an non-disclosure agreement is giving up your right to free speech in an area. You can't contract to do something illegal- like establish an indentured servitude relationship- but I don't think that is the same thing as saying you can't contract away your rights generally. In some ways, that is the whole point of a contract- constraining the things the parties are allowed to do more narrowly than they are by default.
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Yes, there are non-disclousure agreements for preservation of certain entity's rights and such (non-disclosure is mostly related to profit and property). But at the same accord, you cannot agree to be a slave, yes? You cannot agree to be beaten to near death, yes? There are certain base rights which cannot be abdicated. The point of contract is to draw legal agreement between parties; but you cannot abdicate your rights. You can agree to payments and terms and blah; but your base rights are inalienable and thus cannot be abdicated. They can agree to terms in which religious law is observed; but not at the cost of one's rights. No contract for instance can validate abuse.
 
Ikari said:
You cannot agree to be beaten to near death, yes? There are certain base rights which cannot be abdicated.
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Maybe we're just using different terms for the same thing, but I think of it the other way around. It isn't that you can't contract to be beaten to near death because you have a right not to be beaten near death, it is because there is a prohibition on beating people to near death. A right is something you are allowed to do, but you can always choose not to do it and you can make that choice legally binding with a contract. You can't get around a prohibition society imposes on you by contracting with an individual, but your own individual rights, that you possess, can be handled in a contract between individuals.

After all, free speech is maybe the most fundamental of all rights. If you can give that away in an NDA, then it's hard to say that you can't give away fundamental rights. You give away property rights any time you sell something or buy something. You give away your right to due process when you sign a settlement contract with the government.
 
teamosil said:
Maybe we're just using different terms for the same thing, but I think of it the other way around. It isn't that you can't contract to be beaten to near death because you have a right not to be beaten near death, it is because there is a prohibition on beating people to near death.
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Why would there be a prohibition against beating people nearly to death, such that one couldn't even enter into a contract allowing that, other than that society has determined that there is a right which must be protected by such a strict prohibition?

If there's no right, then there's no reason for the prohibition against violating that right.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
Why would there be a prohibition against beating people nearly to death, such that one couldn't even enter into a contract allowing that, other than that society has determined that there is a right which must be protected by such a strict prohibition?

If there's no right, then there's no reason for the prohibition against violating that right.
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I think of it differently. Society doesn't want people doing X to others for whatever reason- maybe because they don't want X done to them, maybe because X violates a social taboo, maybe because X causes the sewers to get backed up. Whatever their reason, they have two tools at their disposal to prevent it from happening. They can prohibit the actor from doing X or they can give people a right not to have X done to them. The different approaches have different advantages and disadvantages in different situations. Maybe it's really easy to tell who is doing X, but hard to know precisely who it is being done to. For example, pollution- it's easier to spot polluters than to track the impact to a specific individual, so prohibition is the more sensible approach. Or, maybe the party that is doing it is the harder one to pin down. For example, with free speech it's easier to identify that a particular person wants to say something but isn't being allowed to than to try to figure out whether it was the guy that denied them the marching permit, or whether it was the legislature that passed the ordinance requiring permits or whether it was the previous marchers that left a mess behind who is to blame for his loss of free speech. So in that cast it's better to create a right that the speaker can use to prevent people from silencing him.
 
As far as never citing foreign law, did we all forget that US common law is based on British common law? It's not that unusual for litigants and cite British common law in obscure cases. Lousiana's law is based on the Code Napoleon. The LA Code has been translated into English, but if there is ever a conflict in meaning, the official version is the original French version of the LA Code. Being the only civil law state, it's more common for courts and litigants to cite foreign precedent.

As far as Oklahoma's law, it's naked bigotry. A law written to address a problem that absolutely does not exist in Oklahoma, or AFAIK, anywhere else in the US.
 
teamosil said:
No, according to the census, there are 1,349,000 Muslims in the US. Out of 311 million people, so that is 0.4%. And the majority of Muslims worldwide oppose basing a government on Sharia. So, at the most, that is 0.2% of the country that wants to replace the constitution with a new system based on Sharia law.

So, how close to the number they need does that put them? In order to amend the constitution you need 2/3 of both the House and the Senate. So far, there is 1 Muslim in the House and he would never support anything like a theocracy, and zero Muslims in the senate. You also need a majority in 3/4 of the states. So far I don't think Muslims make up more than 2% in any state, so Muslims that believe we should replace the constitution with Sharia law would be 1% even in the most Muslim states...

So yeah...
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The numbers are based on a telephone poll..

More realistic estimates state that there are 6+ million Muslims in the US, which is 2%.

But the sad fact is no one knows for sure how many Muslims are in the US.
 
PeteEU said:
The numbers are based on a telephone poll..

More realistic estimates state that there are 6+ million Muslims in the US, which is 2%.

But the sad fact is no one knows for sure how many Muslims are in the US.
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Source please. But regardless, even if it is 2%, obviously that is nowhere near the say 75% that you need to replace our system of laws with Sharia law, so all the lip flapping about Sharia still has no rational basis. It's just an outlet for bigots to spew their religious hatred. Or perhaps more precisely, it is a means for politicians to appeal to the religious hatred of a segment of the voters.
 
teamosil said:
It isn't really debatable whether a law that gives lower status to one religion than other religions is bigotry. Of course it is. That doesn't require any speculation or anything, that's just bigotry on its face.
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Last time I checked, law wasn't based on religion.
 
Bob Blaylock said:
I don't necessarily agree.

A judge ought to consider whatever law is relevant over the matter being considered. Normally, an American judge would be presiding over a matter that falls entirely under American law, and so should only consider that law. I don't know how unusual it would be for an American judge to be presiding over a case that falls under the jurisdiction of any foreign laws, but in any such case, that judge should certainly take those laws into account.
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I think the few times when foreign law may be taken into consideration is when the matter involves foreign imports etc. For example, in the US it may be legal to import X, however exporting X from country Y may be illegal. If X is found to have come from Y then I would think the judge may find ground to rule that the person committed an illegal act. The same may be true of somebody who breaks child custody laws. However I'm not too sure.
 
Of course, the Feds were correct in blocking that law. Had they not done so, then what about Mosaic law? Yes, Mosaic law also exists in the United States. Consider what is kosher. This is written into contracts in the Jewish community. In choosing to block Sharia law but not Mosaic law, the State of Oklahoma was essentially Violating the First Amendment, which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Pertinent part bolded for emphasis.
 
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mike2810 said:
It still amazes me if someone dislikes something the bigotry card or race card is played. There could be other reasons for not liking Shariah law.
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It's bigotry or ignorance. There are no other options here, and in a scenario like this one the second probably has roots in the first.

It doesn't matter what "reason" someone "doesn't like" Sharia Law. It's a problem that doesn't exist. There is no Sharia Law in this country. No Islamic, Christian, or Jewish rule can ever override our rights or laws. The Old Testament explains a lot of different times it's ok to kill someone, but if that conflicts with US murder laws they can't be applied in a court.

So, either people support this bill because they hate Muslims or they support the bill because they have some idiotic idea that Islamic law can actually override US law. It can't.

Ignorance, hate, or both.

Like others have mentioned, there are times when foreign laws or religious laws are correct to apply in a court. An example case, which was partly responsible for this "controversy" was where a dispute came up in terms of ownership of a mosque. Some guys had been ousted as owners of the mosque, and they were suing in court saying this was done incorrectly. The ownership contract specified that ownership and operations would run in compliance with Sharia Law.

So the court had to apply Sharia Law in the case, to the extent that it determined how the contract worked. The court ruled that the contract had been followed as written, so there was no grounds for the lawsuit.

And people freaked out. "Sharia law takes hold in the US! Husbands can beat their wives!!!"

Idiocy. And hatred.
 
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