Sharia law

Ex-CIA Director Defends Okla. Ban on Judges Making Decisions Based on Shariah Law

By Dan Joseph
(CNSNews.com) – Former CIA director James Woolsey is defending a measure that Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly passed last week barring state judges from relying upon Islamic (Shariah) law as the basis for making court decisions. The ballot measure is being challenged in federal court by a Muslim group.

Woolsey, a member of a group of policy experts dedicated to exposing the dangers of Shariah and a champion of the Oklahoma measure, told CNSNews.com the Islamic system of laws represents a danger to the United States.

“In some countries -- more in Europe than here, but also a little bit here -- men are saying if they are in adherence to Shariah, that Shariah gives them the authority to beat their wives and daughters, for various disciplinary purposes or for whatever reason,” Woolsey said.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange, chief judge for the Western District of Oklahoma, issued a temporary retraining order blocking implementation of referendum measure 755, which adds an amendment to the state constitutional to prohibit state court judges from considering principles of Shariah law and international law when deciding cases.

Woolsey told CNSNews.com that there have already been troubling court decisions in Europe, as well as one in New Jersey, in which courts have upheld violence against women as legal because the defendants adhered to Islamic law.

“There have been some awful cases in Germany and Italy -- one in which a man’s right to severely beat his daughter was upheld by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation,” Woolsey said. “(There were) two ugly ones in Germany where men’s rights to beat their daughters and wives were upheld by the judicial system.”

The Oklahoma measure, which passed with 70 percent of the vote, is being challenged by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging its constitutionality almost immediately after the measure was passed.

CAIR claims the ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from making laws respecting the establishment of religion.

Additionally, the Muslim group claims that the law has the potential to infringe on the rights of Muslims by preventing them from wearing headscarves and being buried according to their religion.

“Right now a Muslim woman can wear a head scarf in a driver’s license photo,” CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said. “But I can easily foresee a case where, if she was prevented from doing this and took it to court, they would say ‘We can’t consider this case because it would be based on your belief in Islamic principles.’”

Hooper and CAIR maintain the Oklahoma law could also unjustly interfere with Islamic burial traditions.

“If a Muslim convert writes instructions for people in his family who are not Muslim and says ‘I want to be buried according to Muslim traditions’ and the family says ‘No. We’re not going to do it’ his wife could not challenge that agreement because his wife could not refer to Islamic principles.”

Hooper also said the ban is unnecessary.

“The First Amendment rights prohibit the government from passing a law that prohibits a specific religion. I challenge you to find any constitutional expert who says that this law will pass constitutional muster. Impossible.”

But Woolsey, meanwhile, challenges the idea that the law unconstitutionally singles out Islamic law. He said Shariah is the only religious law that is currently being used to justify violence against women.

“If they (CAIR) can find an example of another religious doctrine that permits -- indeed authorizes -- the beating of women and little girls then one might want to listen to them,” he said. “I have not heard that the Confucians or the Anabaptists, or whoever, claim that a subset of their religious doctrines authorize such beatings.”

Other supporters of the Oklahoma measure agree. Jim Lafferty, founder of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force, told CNSNews.com that Shariah is very different than the U.S. Constitution or the constitution of any state, Lafferty told CNSNews.com.

“It is counter-constitutional, as a matter of fact,” he said. “What it does is establish rights according to religion and gender.”

Lafferty also said that fears that the rights of Muslim-Americans would be curtailed are unjustified.

“It’s perfectly legal for women to wear headscarves and has been under our (the U.S.) Constitution and that will continue,” he said. “The problem that we have is that it becomes illegal to do other things like practice freedom of religion, if Shariah ever becomes the dominant code.”

The restraining order against the ban will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a preliminary injunction.